


Gravity Falls idea/drabble dump

by InternetCannibal



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:02:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 25
Words: 29,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22778380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InternetCannibal/pseuds/InternetCannibal
Summary: I am no longer in the gravity falls fandom but I have snippets of writing I still am proud of so I will be dumping them into here in case I ever want to return to them.More of a place for me to dump my ideas to get em off my google doc, rated high because I know theres some dubious stuff in here, a mixed bag read at your own risk
Kudos: 3





	1. Some billford thing with water deprivation tw: captive ford

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to make something borderline kinky but not. Also i like tormenting ford

"Are you thirsty, Sixer?"  
The cruel statement that comes from the floating triangle is high in pitch but also penetrates into the restrained man's bones in a way no other sound can. 'Sixer' doesn't lift his head, glaring resolutely at the floor. Its been what, four days? a week? Maybe more.  
Bill's words make him remember that, licking his chapped lips and feeling every breath he takes drying out his already sandy throat like quiet torture.  
Thirsty? He was parched, but he'd never let his captor make him admit it.

Bill's words have him unconsciously swallowing, and the demon notices and laughs harder. "You know what to do, Fordsy," Bill says, conjuring up a martini glass full of water in one hand and swirling the clear liquid inside it with one finger. "You fleshbags really can't go without this stuff for very long! Keep it up and your insides will stop working."  
He pulls his finger from the water and turns his eye into a mouth, letting a long blue tongue snake out of the toothy hole and catching the single crystal droplet clinging to his claw as it falls.  
"Hm, not terrible! Do you know what *is* terrible, Stanford? You holding out on that equation! Your dimension continues to suffer under the yoke of its own failures and the laws of physics when it could be partying for the last half of forever!"  
He floats down to the ground where Ford is chained to the floor, kneeling, with his arms manacled behind him. Black claws tighten in his soft salt and pepper hair and then he yanks the man's head back so he's forced to look at him. "You'd rather die then liberate your stupid world, huh? I'd say that's admirable, but it's not, you're stupid, and all this suffering you're dealing with, it's your fault."

Then, he lets go and takes a sip from the glass, before turning it sideways and spilling the rest onto the floor in front of Ford. The sight and sound of water have an immediate reaction on him, he jerks forwards towards the stream, stopping short as the chain attached to the collar around his throat tightens and prevents him from leaning forwards any more.

Bill drops the margarita glass and his eye narrows in what can only be glee as Ford leans back, wheezing a little. "Look at that! You're like a *dog.* Reduced to this, it's pathetic! You could have been the man who changed the world--no! The man who RULED the world, and now you're just an old mutt. How's that make you feel, Fordsy?"  
Ford glares at Bill but says nothing, maintaining his silence even though his expression is both angry and also pitying. Bill notices, and then he snarls, letting his hand lash out, claws raking across the side of the man's cheek, leaving bloody gashes in its wake, not deep but painful; and causing him to finally let out a pained yell. "DO NOT LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT, YOU WORM. YOU'RE NOTHING, *WERE* NOTHING WITHOUT ME. I’M NOT THE ONE IN CHAINS, I'M NOT THE ONE YOU SHOULD BE PITYING!!!"

Ford drops his head, the tears pricking his eyes burn like acid.  
Ever mercurial, Bill's mood shifts again, after a few moments. "I was your everything, Stanford. Why did that have to change?"  
He reaches out, carefully taking his head into his claws and lifting it again, making him look at him. He looks so pretty when he cries.  
"Give me the equation, Fordsy. It's not worth this pain. You know it hurts me more then it hurts you. What do you want? Let's make a deal, let’s compromise."

Ford licks his lips, feeling the blood dripping from the stinging cuts on his cheek, finally meeting Bill's eyes. "....Water," he croaks out. 

Bill blinks, voice taking on a slightly disbelieving tone. "You'd trade your universe for *water?*"  
Ford shakes his head, the motion making him a little dizzy. "Water first." He doesn't know if he's even going to entertain Bill's idea, no, he won't, but Bill doesn't know that. He may know almost everything, but he can't see inside his head.

Bill laughs. "Fine, you can have your water~"  
He summons a water bottle in his hand and then pops the cap clean off. Ford visibly perks up, but then the demon is dumping it down his own gullet, or whatever lies behind his eye-mouth. His voice comes from everywhere, independant of his mouth. Ford recoils.

"YOU KNEW THIS WAS COMING, SIXER,~ THE ONLY WAY YOU'LL GET YOUR WATER IS THROUGH ME!"  
Bill's black claws grasp onto either side of his jaw and pull his face closer, and Ford resigns himself to it moments before Bill's pseudo-mouth covers his own. The kiss makes him shudder, for a variety of reasons, but mostly because once he opens his lips to admit Bill's tongue into his mouth its also flooded by cold, fresh water. He drinks greedily, eyes closed, forgetting the situation he's in, forgetting that he swore he'd never look at or think about Bill in this way again, but the slight acrid zing of electricity that is Bill's natural taste, it tastes all too familiar.  
Bill vibrates without motion, hums without sound, and when the water is no longer flowing, he pulls back. Trails of black slime stretch from his tongue to Ford's lips, and the man looks dazed, tired and defeated all at the same time, the phantom of a blush on his cheeks. He shudders again, looking away, and then after a few moments, speaks. "Okay," he says in a quiet voice. "Lets talk."


	2. Another dark billford tw mindbreak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More ford torture yay

The end of the world truly was a spectacular sight when you were above it all.

So thought Stanford Pines, from his position standing before the window that looked down on the burning hellscape that was his planet.  
The collar around his neck felt heavy, but his green eyes betray no emotion other then objective interest. He was past the denial and the horror and even the fear.

Bill had tricked him, sure, but he had also plucked him from the masses and lifted him up to the stars, an honor none had but him.

The deemon was free with his contempt of the human race, and the glee with which he watched them burn, but Ford, Ford was special.  
That’s what he told himself; it staved off the madness long enough for him to recieve another dose of complacency, a drug given to him by his god, and he craved it. The burn, the sear, and the rush of endorphins granted to him from Bill’s kiss.

He lifts a hand and hooks finger through the ring on his collar. Bill had made him his pet, and instead of giving him unlimited knowledge he had been humiliated, degraded, made worthless.

No. I’m loved.  
Bill gave him the collar, and sure the clothing he was permitted to wear were sparse, and sure he was forbidden to leave Bill’s temple, a monstrous monolithic pyramid with unknowable dimensions and constantly shifting rooms and atriums within.  
But there was so much to see, and Bill’s subordinates treated him with deference.

They mock you. You’re a toy.

The intrusive thought is chased by an unwelcome stab of panic, what was he doing, why was he here, what had he done?

Ford clutches at his head with both hands and turns from the window, from the dark continents below, the atmosphere lit by the endless burn of flames and tries to take measured breaths.  
He needs Bill, he needs—

Poison.

He hurries barefoot down the warm halls, the dark stone beneath his feet pulsing softly without moving. He knows, on another plane of existance, the whole pyramid is a living thing, a mass of grotesque flesh and rolling eyes and gaping maws, he’s seen it, he’s seen many things.

He doesn’t look where he’s going, he doesn’t need to, the pyramid knows, it knows what he desires and its winding brick path leads him straight to Bill.  
In a throne room cavernous and lavishly decorated in red,gold and black, he finds his god.

Once Bill Cipher had achieved his end goal, a physical form and dominion over the whole third dimension, his power had become near limitless.  
Everytime something living had died, its energy had flowed directly through and into him, because he was everywhere and nowhere and in one place all at the same time.

No longer bound to a 2D form, he no longer had to limit his size or shape, though he stuck with the triangle motif for posterity, such as it were.

Looking at him hurt Ford’s eyes, he glowed nearly white at times and when Ford steps into the throne room, he has to shield his burning eyes with an arm until the light subsides.

“THERE’S MY PET GENIUS. I WAS WONDERING WHERE YOU GOT OFF TO.”  
Bill’s voice shakes the room from where he’s seated on his throne, his large eye fixing on Ford. He leans forwards, black claws curling into the throne’s arms. “WHAT WERE YOU DOING, FORDSY?”  
His eye narrows dangerously, and then he lifts a hand and crooks a finger. “COME HERE, PET. I MISSED YOU TODAY.”

Don’t do it. He’s lying, he always lies. 

Ford’s legs move without him really thinking about it, transfixed by Bill’s endlessly black pupil, pulling his mind inorexably in.


	3. Ford meets a creepy death god tw descriptions of rot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yummy yummy venison

You are a stranger in a strange land.

The words echoed in Ford’s head as he continues walking through the silent, misty wood, boots sinking slightly into the springy, mossy ground as he takes step after step towards….something. Something big.  
Maybe he didn't consciously hear the words, as they came from all around him, repeated into infinity in the goosebumps on his arms and the electric feeling in the air, but his deepest self understood them, an understanding that he must tread lightly and with respect for this place was much more than him. Stronger, older, more powerful, more.

If he had ever imagined what magic felt like, real magic, it would be this. Every breath he takes tastes of loam, petrichor and something else….something he can’t describe.  
Its a shame he can’t stay longer, but the heavy metal gun strapped to his back reminded him over and over that he had a job to do, a purpose, and to get sidetracked by pretty fae woods was foolish. Not even half of his tech worked in this place, save for his translator, thankfully, if the conversation he had with the old woman in the village at the foot of the mountain was any indication, and the device that told him where dimensions were weakest and the coordinates to that location. Everything else wouldn’t even turn on.  
He passes rings of mushrooms around old trees, dark, still pools of rainwater in mossy stone cradles, and many varieties of interesting ferns and other flora. Not a single animal, though. That was slightly disconcerting because there were humanoids here, he’d spoken with them, they’d pointed him up the mountain and given him a canteen of water for his journey, and he’d seen them eating...something meaty around a fire.  
Also strange, since there was fresh water aplenty and it was raining lightly, he could feel the drops on the back of his neck and it didn’t burn or anything. But come to think of it, his translator might be on the fritz too because he could recall one part of the conversation he hadn’t understood. It had been in the beings native tongue, and he had been too polite to ask them to repeat themselves. They seemed to struggle with his terrible accent anyway and had just….waved him off towards the mountain path. 

Every so often he finds stone statues flanking the path, or lack thereof, as there wasn't one anymore, he’d stopped seeing a maintained trail an hour or so back down the mountain. Now he was guided only by the soft beeping of his trusty O.W.L and his wits.  
The terrain was starting to incline even more, and when he looks through the mist ahead, he could see that there was quite a climb ahead of him, so he opts to take a rest and maybe eat some of his rations, certainly drink. He finds himself a slightly damp log and unslings the weapon he had made from his back, bending down to set it on the forest floor carefully. If it wasnt in operation, if he managed to damage it, he wouldn’t know until he was out of this place and who knows what kind of danger lies in the dimension that parallels this one?

As he unstraps his canteen to take a drink, there’s a sudden prickling at the back of his neck that tells him something is wrong, and thirty years of paranoia had never steered him wrong when it counted. Its a very distinct feeling of being watched, and then on a whim, he unscrews the water canteen and sniffs it. It's not water. He doesn’t know WHAT it is, but when he pours it out onto the ground, it's brackish and smells like some kind of herb. Instantly he tenses, and quickly scans the surrounding forest. He can feel them there, hidden in the shadows of the trees with their eyes on him. They had followed him, villagers, most likely armed. The ‘water’ would have most likely drugged him and he would have been helpless to resist whatever horrible fate they had planned for him.

An image of a hunk of glistening meat roasting over a fire sparks up in his mind's eye and suddenly twists his stomach. He snatches up the strap of his gun and abandons the canteen, moving diagonally to his original course, deeper into the trees instead of higher up the mountain where he can be picked off by long-range weapons. He hadn’t fought and survived this long to die at the hands of cannibals.  
The sudden sound of footfalls giving chase behind him confirms his suspicions, and he resolves that if they want a piece of him, they’re going to have to work damn hard for their supper.  
The forest floor gets darker as the canopy gets thicker, and as he breaks into a run, he can hear the hunters tracking him slow and fall behind. Eventually, it's silent again.

Ford slows to catch his breath, feeling the deep wet chill changing to something colder, his breath misting white in the dark. His stops walking, suddenly unsure if it's a good idea to keep going. Surely the hunters turned back, he could sneak back up onto the ridge and continue on his way, but just as his body turns, he hears it, deep and echoing through his mind and his bones. 

Come.  
Stanford Pines had dealt with many a strange creature and beast, aliens and demons weren’t things he was afraid of, but something in that voice spoke to the most primal part of him, the part that whispered you are just prey in the darkest of nights, when sleep is impossible and the shadows close in around the fire he’s made to keep them at bay. It told him there was no escape now, he was already dead, and it told him to accept his fate.

Come to me, manling of the stars. Come to me.

With all of his instincts screaming at him, Ford turns to leave, because he’s not going to indulge this being in being a meal for it. But something makes him hesitate, and instead of walking away, he plants his feet where he stands, faces the dark and speaks out to ...it.

“What will you give me if I do?”  
That….wasn’t what he wanted to say, he was going to ask what manner of nightmare it was, but it was like something had taken hold of his tongue and spoken through him.  
He doesn’t at all like that sensation. It reminds him too much of what he used to endure.

There’s a silence in the air that’s thick, its oily, he can taste it. And then again, the voice, echoing out of the rotting earth. 

Dominion over your own fate.

Something about that sentence deeply unnerves him, but Ford stands his ground, perhaps foolishly, the cold air giving him clarity, as whatever had inhabited him earlier, was gone. “I have that already. There’s nothing you can give me that will make me enter your territory.”

You know not where you stand, manling. You stand in the presence of a fallen god.

Ford’s eyes narrow. “I’ve had more then enough dealings with gods and demons then I’m comfortable with, so I’ll be taking my leave now.”  
He doesn’t turn his back, but he starts backing away slowly. He’d rather take his chances with the cannibalistic natives then whatever’s lying in wait where the forest is decaying.  
As he moves, there’s a sudden, wet slithering sound from over the damp earth, followed by the creak of what his mind tells him is bones rubbing together, and despite his fear, he’s suddenly reluctant to move. It must be the creature’s influence, but he wants to see it. Lay eyes on this..god. Just once.

And then, through the darkness it comes.It must be thirty feet tall, some sort of giant white stag, with decomposed humanoid corpses hanging off its impressive antlers, like decorations, hide split and leaking some sort of dark fluid in patches, bones visible, belly grotesquely bloated and dragging its putrid organs where it had burst open on the ground beneath it.  
Its sightless, sunken pale eyes fix on him, and it has three faces seamlessly merged together, lower jaw missing, purple tongue hanging from each like a thick twitching tentacle. As Ford suddenly finds his feet and staggers backwards, it lowers its head, pointing the bloody, prongs of its antlers at him in preparation to charge, and he finally turns and flees, driven by pure animalistic terror. He doesn’t stop running until the air warms and his feet find the mountainside again, and doesnt stop his trek until he’s reached the place he needs to be.  
He doesn’t sleep that night, all through the hours his translator keeps picking up whispers, snatches of alien words he doesn’t want to hear, and once, just before the timer goes off for him to depart, words said in a voice like squirming maggots against wet leaves; now you’ve felt real fear.

He doesn’t look back at the misty trees below even once as he gratefully slips through the weak point and leaves, or he might have seen something like blood encrusted antlers poking up above the treeline.


	4. Gravity falls angel au no tw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I never wrangled the angel au. Ack

The garden was a sea of flora and multicolored flowers, paths and fountains and manicured lawns covered in soft grass, and the two cherubs raced through the echoing marble hall, laughing. Mabel was leading the way, practically dragging her brother towards the sunshine.  
Mason could only try his best to keep up with his energetic twin. “Mabel! You know we’re not allowed to run in here—“  
But of course she payed no mind and dragged him right past a door that opened at that exact moment, revealing a tall, stately older man with calculating bronze eyes and grey/white hair. Mason gulps and yanks his hand from Mabel’s grasp, skidding to a stop, his heart hammering. He lifts his right arm to his chest and bows, stammering a greeting to the archangel as is custom, his wings fluttering a little nervously.  
“Good morning sir!”

Mabel rolls her eyes, completely immune to the superior angel’s quietly intimidating presence. Her brother really was a suck up some times. Especially where Stanford was concerned!  
“Mason, cmon!”  
She reached for his arm and snags his sleeve, using that to bodily drag him away.

Ford watches them go, tracking the pair with his eyes until they’re out of sight, the slightest hint of amusement registering in his expression before he turns and walks the other way.

“Mabel! You embarrassed me in front of the Archangel! He saw me running in the halls!”  
Mason frowns, fingers twisting in the fabric of the cream and gold shirt he wore, a pit forming in his stomach. Mabel scoffs but then turns to look at him. “Okay, you’re getting really worked up over the shuffling of feet moving faster then a walk! C’mon Dipper, he didn’t reprimand us, so it probably wasn’t a big deal!”

Mason’s jaw drops and then he looks off to the side. “I-I’m sure it was because we’re not worth his time! He probably has people to do that for him...”

“Uughh, Mason! You promised you’d eat lunch with me in the gardens today, so stop-,” She suddenly smacks his back and head with one of her soft seal brown wings, and makes him jolt forwards slightly, “-with the worrying. You worry waaaay too much. The sun is shining, I can smell the flowers and those pretty winged bugs are out again. I want to see them up close!”

Mason huffs, rubbing the back of his head. “Butterflies.”  
“Huh?”  
Now its his turn to roll his eyes. “Mabel, they’re called butterflies. They’re all over the earth down below, you know. There’s so many species too. Some of which are really rare—

She laughs and cuts him off. “Okay, fine! *Butterflies.* Lets go catch one!”  
And then she’s off, leaving Mason to sigh and look up at the cloudless blue sky. Maybe he did worry too much. He looks back down towards his sister, her mahogany brown hair shining in the sun as she jumps and pounces about trying to catch one of the fluttering insects.  
Some adults had stopped in their tasks to watch her gam-boll about like a fledgeling. He watches too, a little smile curling his lips.  
And then, of course, she squeals, getting up from the ground with clasped hands. “I caught one! Mason, I got one!”

He wants to reply that catching a placidly fluttering insect wasn’t that big of a feat, but seeing the happiness in her eyes, he can’t bring himself to do it. He walks forwards. “Way to go, Mabes. Lets see, careful, don’t crush it.”

Mabel carefully opens her hands, and the butterfly instantly takes flight again, eliciting a disappointed ‘Hey!’ from her. 

The delicate creature flies in a wide circle around both children and then lands on Mason’s face.  
He stands as still as he can, startled eyes crossing a little to keep it in view as it slowly opens and closes its blue and green wings.

Mabel oohs, looking captivated. “It likes you!”  
Then, as soft as a mother’s kiss, it takes to the air again and flies up into the sky until its lost from sight.  
—-

“So I’ve been doing some thinking—“  
“Uh oh,” Mason teases, lifting the orange slice to his lips and biting down. Sweet juice runs down his chin but he doesn’t mind, its good fruit.  
“I’m trying to be serious here!” She wrinkles her nose, taking a sip from the cup of water in front of her. “I’ve been doing some thinking,” She says again, and then finishes with: ‘And I don’t think being a guardian is for me.”

Mason almost chokes. “Wait, what? Mabel, this is what we were made for!”  
She wrinkles her nose again. “I know, I know, I just think my talents could be used elsewhere? Like.... cooking! I’m a really good cook! Or even making clothes, or gardening....”  
She looks around the gardens and throws her arms wide. “Really, Dipper. Do you really think I’d be able to follow a human around all the time? My attention span is like zero!”

He considers this. She does have a point. “So....”  
She picks a grape off the bunch and pops it into her mouth. “So,” she continues for him, “I’m gonna request a change in assignments.”  
Mason chews his lip, something he only does when he’s unsure. “Are you sure? That means we’ll be put in different classes...”

Mabel grins. “LookI know I’m awesome and you can’t get enough of me, but maybe a little time apart will be good. Besides, its not like we’ll be assigned the same human if I stay in Guardian training, I’ll be sent somewhere else, and you’ll be alone anyway!”

That’s true. Still, he can’t help it. “I’m going to miss you.”

“Mason, we live together.”

Eventually the topic changes. “So about that history lesson.”  
“Hm?” He looks over at her, then back up at the sky, watching some clouds scud past overhead as he lays on his back in the soft, fragrant grass. “What about it?”

Mabel furrows her eyebrows. “I don’t know.... if I believe it.”  
“What?” His tone of alarm has her backpedalling. “Okay, no, I *believe* it! I’m sure it happened! I just don’t think Stanley was all....that bad?”

Mason sits up to stare incredulously down at his sister. “What?! He was evil! He tried to bring down the entire heavenly host! How can you think that’s not ‘all that bad?’”

She sits up too, amber eyes meeting his. “He killed a human, okay that was bad, but I’m sure he had a good reason? Every time the scholars talk about ‘before the fall’ they say he was devoted to his duty and to his brother. I just... don’t think he was given a chance to explain himself? And then he was thrown from the heavens along with the people that were on his side—and incinerated? What kind of fate is that?”

Mason frowns. “You’re forgetting the part where he became the lord of all demons, started a war with heaven, and vowed to destroy us all.”

She shakes her head. “Okay, maybe he’s a jerk now, but what if there was a chance to make him good again?”

“Mabel.”  
Mason grabs onto both her shoulders and shakes her a little. “You can’t talk like this. Its dangerous.”

She brushes off his touch. “I know, I know, I’m only specularizing.”

“Mabel, that’s not a word.”

“YOU’RE not a word!”

They return to watching the clouds together, side by side, as twins should be.


	5. Grimoire Falls magic AU drabble 1 TW WADDLES DIES

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimoire falls was like a mix of studio ghibli magic aesthetic mixed with house with a clock in its walls. Stan owns a magic house and knows magic Because his brother disappeared. He gets kids for the summer, also there’s a sleeping demon locked in the basement. Fun times

“Do you think it's true?” The young, brown haired girl in the purple and cream sweater and black skirt steps over a log, the hot pink leash wrapped around her slim hand. “Do you think a witch lives deep in the forest?”

“I dunno,” the boy replies, making sure the blue and white hat he chose for himself is more secure over his curls and then almost stumbling over a root before righting himself. “Witches arent real, are they?”

The girl laughs and shoots a playful look over her shoulder at him. “You’d know, mister ghost buster!”  
At the end of the leash, a large pig is snuffling amongst the mushrooms and making pleased snorting sounds as it roots about in the loamy earth and overturns tasty things to eat.

“Mabel, please, don’t ever call me that again.” The girl’s brother is pink faced. “I want to be a paranormal investigater, not...someone that waves a vacuum around and tries to catch ghosts.”

Mabel snorts just like her pig and then laughs, a loud, happy sound that seems at odds with the somber woods. “There’s a difference?”

“Mabel!”

“Aw, C’mon, Dipper, I know you’re serious about this stuff, but-”  
Dipper huffs and walks up to his sister, pointing at her. “Let me stop you right there and remind you that you think unicorns are real- AND that they’re out to get us with some secret agenda.”

Mabel pouts and crosses her arms. “They ARE real and their niceness is a facade to lure people in! Have you ever seen a MEAN unicorn? No, they’re all rainbows and sunshine and that’s suuuuper suspicious!”

Dipper rolls his eyes. “Here we go.”  
Mabel huffs. “You can laugh now but when the unicorns come for you I’m not gonna--Whoa!” She stumbles as her weight is jerked off balance suddenly by the pig at the end of the leash rushing forwards and disappearing into the bushes. “Wh-Hey, Waddles, slow down! Whoa, boy!”  
She digs in her heels and Dipper grabs hold of her by the waist as they both try to stop him from running off. “What’s gotten into him? Truffles?”  
The leash jerks hard forwards and both of them hit the ground hard. Mabel spits out a leaf. “Blegh! Waddles, why you gotta be so…”  
She scrambles to her feet when she notices the leash laying without resistance on the ground. Following it back to its harness- the harness that Waddles was supposed to be securely strapped in, she finds it empty.  
In the distance, the sound of a pig squealing. She lets out a cry. “WADDLES!” But when she moves to rush after it. Dipper catches her arm. “Mabel, what are you doing? Its almost dark and Stan said-”  
“WE HAVE TO GET WADDLES! I’M NOT LEAVING WITHOUT HIM!”  
And then she yanks her arm free and takes off deeper into the woods. Dipper has no choice but to chase after his sister.

The trees grow closer together, blocking out the fading sunlight and the air gets cooler the farther they run. Mabel keeps calling for Waddles and as much as Dipper wants to turn back, he knows she’s not going to.

Eventually the sun slips below the horizon completely, leaving them in deepening dusk with no sign of the pig. Dipper keeps his head practically on a swivel, starting to shiver in the chill. “Mabel,” he starts, then watches his sibling crumple in front of him. “Mabel?!”

She’s just sobbing, hugging her knees and wailing, and he can do nothing but crouch next to her and hold her, trying to comfort her as best he can. “I-I’m sorry, Mabel…”  
He doesn’t even know what to say, so he just hugs her, lets her cry into his chest and rubs her back.

The sound of foliage rustling a few feet away makes him snap his head up and freeze, peering towards it. “....Waddles…?”

The thing that rises from the bush isn’t Waddles. Its not like any animal he’s ever seen, heard about, or read. Its got a triangular head on a thin body, moves like some sort of insect, and has bright, lamplike, glowing eyes.  
“Mabel,” he breathes, voice shaky. “Get up. We need to go, now!”  
Then before whatever that thing is can attack, he leaps to his feet, pulling her along with him and turns and runs the other way. She lets out a cry of alarm, but the air is full of an insidious wet clicking and she doesn’t argue. The clicking turns into a grating, high pitched screech, and then its chasing them.

With Mabel’s hand in his, Dipper leads the way, heart pounding in his chest, panic swelling in his lungs and making it hard to breathe. What WAS that thing? It looked like a bug, but no bug was that big!!! Right?!

His legs burn, his lungs burn- and then Mabel’s hand is wrenched from his as she trips. He skids and whirls, diving back to drag her upright. “Go! Go! Go!!!”  
Then there’s a swishing sound and a large branch is cut from the tree in front of them and crashes to the ground in their way. Dipper yanks Mabel out of the way and then they hide behind a tree trunk. Mabel covers her mouth with both hands, trying to slow her terrified breathing, and then there’s a loud, familiar squeal. She can’t help but look around the trunk, just in time to see Waddles come charging out of the bushes and slam directly into the monster’s side, knocking it sideways. She gasps but then Dipper yanks her back as the creature snaps its head up, ignoring the pig completely. It starts moving on its multiple legs towards their tree, tail curled over its back like a scorpion and aims its scythe-like foreleg right where they’re cowering, but Waddles bites one of its thin legs and pulls it off course, and instead, the tree trunk a few feet above where the children are hiding is cut through. The tree crashes to the ground and Mabel screams, yanking Dipper out from their compromised hiding place.

He grabs her arm again, about to take off running again, but she hesitates. “Waddles!!”

The pig’s ear flicks but he holds his ground, squealing bloody murder at the monster and standing between it and his owners.  
Mabel cries out in fear as the insect slashes at Waddles, dark blood spraying onto the ground, but on its next pass, he bites down, and with a sickening crunch, severs its arm at the joint.

The monster lets out a shriek that pierces the ears of everything in the vicinity before it retreats, click-clacking and growling. The sound of it crashing through the bushes fades and then Mabel can’t be held back any longer. “Waddles!!!!”  
She rushes to her beloved pet’s side, eyes wide. “No no no no no!!!”  
She looks down at him, laying on his side, and when she places her hand against his skin, it comes away wet. It's too dark to see exactly what that monster did to him, but it's obvious that Waddles isn’t going to recover. She breaks down sobbing over his still weakly breathing form and doesn’t let go even after he’s taken his final breath.  
His blood soaks through her sweater but she doesn’t care, and cries herself dry over his cooling body.

Dipper carefully tugs her to her feet, and she clings to him, still dry sobbing. But there’s nothing they can do for the pig now, and they still need to get home. Dipper’s stomach churns at the thought of leaving Waddles like that, out in the open where anything could eat him, but they had no choice.

Sheltering Mabel in his chest, they turn away and take the first steps towards home.  
Its so dark, Dipper is terrified they’re going the wrong way, and Mabel is unresponsive, so after what seems like ages of walking, he offers up a deal. “Let us get home safe and I’ll do anything. Please. If you’re listening…”  
He doesn’t know what he’s talking to, or if anything is even there, but moments after his uttered prayer, the moon comes out from behind the clouds, bathing the trees and the path ahead in a unfeeling, silvery glow, and he recognizes a landmark they passed on their way in. His heart leaps- they were nearly home!

When he stumbles up the Mystery Shack’s porch steps with Mabel still desperately clinging to him, the door is flung open before he can touch it, their uncle and summer guardian, Stan, standing in the doorway. He looks thunderously angry but worried too. Behind him are two policemen and Soos, the Shack’s maintenance man. Stan opens his mouth to speak but then notices that both of them are covered in leaves and dirt and….blood. It shines wetly in the light from the entrance hall. “You two! Do yoa have any idea what--Wh-What the?!- IS THAT BLOOD?!”

After they’d both been dragged into the Shack and thoroughly examined for injury, Dipper apologizes profusely, while Mabel is given clean clothes and wrapped in a warm blanket. Hot cocoa is made, and the policemen are dismissed. Soos sees himself out, after giving both of them worried glances.

Dipper sits on the couch next to Mabel, who’s retreated almost completely inside the blanket, waiting for the lecture.  
Stan paces several times before inhaling. “I’m not mad.”  
He says it with finality, then takes a seat on the coffee table in front of him. “I was worried sick, but I’m not mad, I’m just glad you’re both safe... Tell me what happened.”

When Dipper looks up, Stan is looking tired. And older then usual. He swallows and then, in a soft voice, begins recounting what happened.

Stan is silent, listening intently, though when Dipper reaches the part where they first encountered the monster, he pales. Dipper notices, and it sort of scares him. “Grunkle Stan…. There’s no such thing as monsters….right?”  
Its such a childish question, but what he was not expecting was how the older man’s expression crumples. He covers his eyes with one hand and lets out a hard sigh.  
After a moment, he speaks. “I’m sorry, Dipper, and I’m sorry Mabel. I thought I could protect you from this. There was a reason I told you to stay out of the woods. And your pet paid that price.”  
He takes off his glasses and closes his eyes. “I suppose there’s nothing for it. I’ll have to tell you everything.”

When he opens his eyes, he catches sight of Dipper and Mabel, who had reemerged from her blanket cocoon-’s expressions and then backtracks. “Not tonight though. Tonight you both need a hot bath and a long sleep. Come on, up you get.”

He sheperds them both upstairs, and then after a proper bath and warm pajamas are slipped on, he bids them both goodnight. As soon as the door is closed, Mabel leaves her bed and wordlessly slips into Dippers. He doesn’t complain, just wraps his arm around her and tries to sleep.

Its a long time coming, but just as the sun rises, he finally dozes off.


	6. Ford in a mystical land au no tw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A crossover with my original project

The grass waves peacefully in the sunlit meadow, the wind cool and fresh smelling, coming down from the ice-capped mountains far above. The blue sky scudded with puffy white clouds and the elevation made the air thinner, colder. But still, just a hill below him, a shepherd was walking across the grass, stepping between crumbling ruins of civilization long past, guiding their sheep to greener spots.

Ford has never seen a more peaceful place. He sits in the grass and looks out over the sunkissed valley and village below by the lazily flowing, sparkling blue river. People lived down there, without any knowledge of the gun he’s still carrying with him, or of the cosmos beyond what they believe to be true. He can feel the magic all around him now, and it's like he’s connected to the planet itself, everything living and dead connected by the river of energy in the centre. A snake forever eating its own tail as the seasons’ turn, and he was now a part of it.

He knows he can’t stay. But he wants to. God does he want to. Even if he didn’t have a job to do, a purpose, something that kept him moving forward even when he was ready to give up, would it be so terrible to turn away from the fate he’s weaved for himself? Certainly, it would be easier, right? He wasn’t human anymore, he belonged here. Maybe he could even find happiness in such a place.  
Bill couldn’t touch him here, and he couldn’t escape the nightmare realm.

Ford sighs and falls backwards, letting the grass cradle him as he stares up at the sky, beyond which he knows spans billions of stars, each star a potential adventure. Or a potential threat.  
If only he could take this place with him to keep it safe, but he was no god, and there wasn’t a container big enough to contain a planet.

He closes his eyes and lets the colder air rush over him, feels the wind whispering through the grass. And then he senses someone approaching and opens his eyes. They settle down next to him, just out of sight, and for a while drink in the silence with him, before finally speaking.  
“You know,” the feminine voice is calm. “You could always stay.”

Ford laughs softly and closes his eyes again. “Don’t tempt me, please.”

A rustle of grass and then a hand touches his cheek. “Why not? I’m selfish. I will always be selfish, especially when it comes to you.” Her fingers trace down his jaw. “You forget what I am.”

“I didn’t forget,” he murmurs, keeping his eyes closed, feeling the warmth of the sun on his eyelids. “I don’t want to go,” he admits quietly. “I want to stay here forever, I want to live here and grow old here. I want to eventually die here.”

Her laugh is like bells. “If you stay, one of those things will happen sooner rather then later, but you know…” Her voice gets a little distant. “I’ve seen what’s on the other side, and I can tell you, it's not so bad. And you’re a capable fighter, so your end would be father off than even you think.”

Ford opens his eyes when a shadow falls across his face, and he stares up into the warm golden gaze of the woman leaning slightly over him. A colour he used to fear. “It's so….peaceful out there. It's hard to believe this world is at war.”

Twilight laughs and sits back, and he watches her indigo curls ripple in the wind. “Every place at every time is at war with something, Stanford. Be it with something tangible or something metaphorical. We both have demons, but yours are on the inside.”  
She gently presses her fingers to his chest and smiles. “You will beat yours, as I will mine.”

He sighs and sits up. “My demons aren’t really what I’m afraid of,” he says, green eyes looking away. “Its what they’ll reveal about me I’m not looking forward to.”

The woman next to him hums and then picks several blades of grass, deftly weaving them together with her brown fingers. “You know… War makes everyone do terrible things. You’re no different, Stanford Pines. The things you’ve done, the lives you may have taken...you cannot beat yourself up about it forever. You’re not a bad person. You’ve just done bad things. I think…”  
She pauses, tipping her head back to regard the sky. “I think the brother you miss so wouldn’t care about what evils you’ve committed in your life if only he got to see you again, do you agree?”

Ford chews his tongue a moment, before looking down. “I think he’d...punch me, actually.” Then he laughs. “And I would very much deserve it.”

Twilight hums again and leans on his shoulder. “I wish you could stay, but I know you have to go. More than that, I wish I could come with you.”  
“You can’t. You have a duty to your people.”  
“Oh yes,” she agrees, “I do, and I’ve accepted that I never really get what I want, in the long run. But let a girl dream, would you?”  
She nudges his shoulder playfully. “That adversary of yours wouldn’t know what hit him if we faced him together. And I’ve always wanted to explore the stars, you know. You say there’s so much out there then even I can comprehend, it's exciting. I’d love to see the Multiverse for myself one day.”

Ford looks at her. “You will. I know you will.”  
“Maybe in my dreams, spaceman. You forget, if I win this war, I’ll have to assume my place on the raptorian throne. I’d do anything to get out of that, I’m not a monarch, Ford. I never will be.”

“But you are a leader,” he presses. “Your clan would follow you to the ends of the earth because they have faith in you.”

“We were talking about you, not me,” she reminds him good-naturedly. “I know my fate, its to be queen, whether I want to be or not. But you still doubt you’ll fulfil your own destiny, and I will tell you what someone told me a long time ago. If I can’t do that, neither can you.”  
Her eyes twinkle, He wants to kiss her, she’s beautiful and strong and kind and everything he thought he’d never find. He must have leaned in a little because suddenly her finger is on his lips. “Maybe in another lifetime, I could have made you my mate,” She says gently and he blushes and looks away, shamed. Her hands cup his chin and pull his face back around. “Stanford. I may be a selfish leader of criminals, but I know your destiny doesn’t end here, and I can’t, no matter how much I want to, keep you from it. You understand, right?”

He does, but it still hurts. Her gaze softens, and she leans forward, pressing her lips to his forehead. “Most raptakai lose their minds when they leave this place. The sudden absence of arcana fills their hearts with sorrow and they forget how to live, how to be. But you are different, you are strong. You may wander as a kairangi for a long time, but you will find yourself again. This is my blessing to you.”

He keeps his eyes closed for as long as she’s kissing him, but as she pulls away, they flicker open. “Thank you, Twilight. You really will make a wonderful queen one day.”

She just smiles, and her fingers squeeze his own before she pulls away and stands, turning her face towards the wind before looking back down at him and holding out her hand. “Come on, then I can smell dinner on the breeze. Tiamat must have made something special for your last day. Let’s go see what it is, together, shall we?”

Ford smiles and takes her hand, allowing her to pull him to his feet. He grabs his bag from the ground next to him and closes his fingers on hers. She leads him back down the hill towards the smoke drifting on the horizon from their camp and the smell of good food.  
On the horizon, the sky is changing from blue to orange and the lights of the village down in the valley are being lit. He stops dead but doesn’t let go of Twilight’s hand. She stops too and looks back at him quizzically. There’s a lump in his throat and he tries to talk around it. “Will I… Will…”  
She moves closer to him and brings their entwined hands up against his chest. “Will you ever make it back to us?” She asks gently.  
He just nods, unable to speak.

Twilight studies him for a long while, golden eyes reflecting the sunset. “I don’t know,” she answers honestly, a little sadly. “But you will always have us with you, even if you never return. You’re a raptakai now, you walk in our pawprints, you breathe our air, you love as we do. We are connected. And always will be, Stanford Pines.”

He allows her to lead him slowly back down the trail, towards the voices on the wind.


	7. First writing stan and ford no tw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This came to me in a dream how could i not write it

Stanley yawns and sluggishly scratches his rear as he shuffles his way into the kitchen for his usual morning coffee and maybe some toast. He blinks when he notices he’s not alone, them moves for the fridge. “What time is it?”  
Ford is leaning against the wall, like some sort of sentinel, looking out through the small window of the back door, where the dawn is close to breaking. He doesn’t look away. “Its just after six.”

Stan just grunts in reply, closing the fridge and looking for the coffeepot, but its full and on its base. “You made coffee?”  
He’s quite content with that, and reaches for it, pouring it into a mug he takes from the dishrack. “See anything unusual?”  
“Nothing,” the other man replies, but doesn’t even shift position.  
Stan takes a sip from the cup, its good and strong, just how he likes it. He observes his brother for a moment before lowering it. “Ford...”  
“Don’t, Stanley.”  
“You know you don’t have to keep doing this every morning...”  
Ford’s reply is unemotional. “I know.”  
“Its been almost a year—”  
“I know.” Now his tone was coloured with a hint of irritation. Or was it desperation?

Stan fingers the mug and then frowns a little, choosing his next words somewhat carefully. “You can’t keep doing this forever.”  
Ford’s expression finally shifts, he closes his eyes for the briefest moment and then lets out a huff. “I know, I just... I want to be ready. I have to be.”  
Stan sets his coffee down on the table and walks over to his twin. “Hey, if the bastard comes back, we can take him.”  
He smiles. “You’ve got fancy space guns, and I’ve got my fists, and the kids are miles from here. It’ll just be us against him, and I’ve a mind to kick his ass for what he did to you.”  
Ford laughs. “That’s very ...brotherly of you.”  
“Damn straight. My point is, if he comes back, *we’ll* be ready, and we’ll beat him *together.*”

Finally the other man turns away from the predawn horizon and looks at him. There’s a soft smile on his face, a grateful look in his green eyes. “Together,” he echoes.

Stan claps a hand on his shoulder. “That’s right. Now come away from there and sit down, I’ll make you some breakfast.”  
Ford wrinkles his nose suddenly. “Are you going to feed me pancakes with your own hair mixed in again?”  
Stan lets out a bark of a laugh and then looks playfully indignant. “I’ll have you know that was a one time thing and from the way you were acting, you deserved it!”  
Laughing, he moves further into the kitchen, and after a moment, Ford follows him.

Outside the window, the sun breaks the horizon.


	8. Grimoire falls au drabble 2 no tw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uh oh bill’s awake

Stan Pines punches the monster in its throat, and ducks a swipe of its hooked claws, almost slipping on the pool of translucent white goo it had begun secreting from its pores. The thing lets out a hissing gurgle and more of the mucus emerges from its white, maggoty skin. Normally, this was when he'd backtrack, search for another way around in the massive labyrinth; he'd marked all the dead ends and traps over 30 odd years, it was safe for him-- but not today. Today, he cracks his knuckles and then dives at the monster with an angry snarl on his face, his fingers finding its rubbery throat again, and he ignores the burning tingling in his hands, on his exposed skin as he throttles the leech-like thing for all he's worth. He's wasting time, precious, precious time.  
"You bastards won't stop me today!" He spits, and then his fingers find a chink in its weird fleshy armour and he digs his nails in, digs his fingers in as far as they can go, and pulls. The monster shrieks with a sound that could shatter glass, high pitched and grating, and then shrivels and dry up in front of him, ending up a puddle of pockmarked leather in a pile of white acidic slime.

Stan breathes hard and furiously wipes his hands off on his pants before inspecting them and stepping over the mess. They are red but not too swollen. He'll be okay if he ices them when he returns.  
He clenches his fists as he takes the sharp twists and turns in the dark stone labyrinth, something other than the fumes of dying slug monster choking up his throat. Every single living thing that entered this cursed place ended up in the centre, he was well aware, but he still couldn't stop himself from picturing the twins mangled and bloody bodies, broken, burned by fire or worse, chewed on by some horror that called these halls home. He couldn't call out to them- drawing attention to himself or them in a place this big would not only be detrimental, it would be stupid, but he couldn't help himself. He peers around a corner and sees the tail end of something shadowy slip out of sight, and he's forced back to earlier, when he got home, laden with actual groceries. He was excited to see Mabel's glee and Dipper's dubious looks when he told them he was going to make pizza from scratch for them. But all he found, was a vending machine open to reveal the steps leading down, down, down, and a suspiciously quiet house.

Now here he was, sneaking past all manner of horrific creatures, and he'd never been a religious man, but he as praying now, fervently, that he'd find his niblings safe and maybe shaken at the centre, not knowing how or why, but he'd explain, he'd explain everything, and they could go home, and they could badger him about teaching them magic even more then they'd already had.  
Please, he begs silently. Please let them be okay.

Something skitters across his path when he reaches the last corner, and he almost curses, but then another sound draws his attention, and his heart leaps with hope. Voices!  
He almost rushes into the centre room, but something holds him back. There's only one voice. And it's not a child's voice.  
The choked feeling in his throat starts to spread.

"Do come in, Stanley. Stop standing by the door like a creep."  
The words slice through him like knives, icy, icy knives.  
No...  
But he looks, he has to look.

The coffin is open. The chains are scattered on the ground and Its lid is askew and the inside is dark, so dark. He feels something inside him being pulled towards it and has to look away. But its the man, the blonde man sitting on the coffin edge, legs crossed, head down, that draws his gaze and holds it.  
Slowly, the man looks up. One gold eye, bright as the burnished sun. One blue eye, burning like blue fire.  
He smiles, and it's beautiful, and it's treacherous, and its Bill. "Hiya. Long-time no see~"

Stan wants to yell, he wants to scream, he wants to rage at the monster that took his world from him--but as he takes a bold and angry step towards him, he notices the small shapes leaning on either side of his legs. With their heads lightly rested in his lap. Mabel and Dipper.

"What did you do?!"  
His furious, terrified cry echoes off the walls.  
Bill just raises his arms and lightly lays his hands on their heads, almost affectionately. "Shh, they're sleeping.~ You wouldn't want to wake them, would you? So precious, so fragile, so full of life..."

The choked feeling in Stan's throat moves to his lungs and now there's no air. "Give them back," he whispers furiously, taking another step forward. "I don't care…! I'll let you go, just please..."  
He's conscious that he's undoing everything his brother and himself fought to do for the last thirty-six years, but he doesn't care. Nothing matters to him more than his children. Even if they aren't technically...his.

Bill's eyes glitter. "I should turn you into mush, Fez. I should invert your outsides and out-vert your insides! I should melt your brain in your head like butter for what you did! But I'm not going to! Do you know why?"  
He leans forward, his smile malicious. "Because I have bigger fish to fry. Take your brats, I don't have any use for them any longer. And when your world burns, just remember that you traded the lives of billions for two squishable fleshbags!"

The demon suddenly catches fire, blue flames licking up his body, and then he vanishes, and Mabel and Dipper slump like broken dolls to the floor. Stan rushes forwards, gathering them both to his chest before realizing they're far too cold. But alive, as far as he can tell, just very, very weak.  
He pulls off his jacket and uses it as a pillow for them both as he tries to make his shaking hands work. "Light," he mutters, then faster and more frantically. "LIGHT!!"  
His hand catches fire, but its a soft, warm, orange red, and carefully, he warms his niblings, passing the flames over their bodies again and again until they start to stir.

Mabel's eyes open first, and she stares blearily up at Stan as if waking from a long dream. "Hey kiddo," he smiles down at her and tries not to cry. "You were sleeping like a log."  
She frowns and lifts a hand to rub her eyes. "I think I had a really weird dream... where are we?"

Stan takes his eyes off her for a second and then realizes that the room they're in is a lot smaller, the floor clean, and the light of the elevator is blinking at him from across the room. He exhales, hard. "You somehow found yourself in the basement, but it's okay, I got ya."

Beside her, Dipper is waking up. "Grunkle Stan..?" His voice is slurred. "What...?"  
Stan just carefully picks them both up and carries them to the elevator. "Shh. No more talking till we get upstairs. You're going to have a long hot bath, and then we're going to make dinner together."  
"Really...?"  
"Really."  
The elevator has just enough magic to get them up to ground level, and then it powers down. Stan doesn't even look back, and it's only after the kids are in the bath that he shuts the secret door and finally takes a moment to parse out his feelings. He had unleashed a great and horrible evil into the world, just what Ford had tried not to do. But Bill was still weak. He'd be laying low for a while, and that allowed Stan time to rectify his mistake. But as he heard Mabel calling from the upstairs bathroom, he found himself putting such doomsaying thoughts out of his mind. Not tonight. 

"So what's for dinner anyway?" Dipper asks, with just the right amount of suspicion as Stan pulls the ingredients from the fridge. Mabel eyes them critically. "Cake! No, Pie!"  
"Pizza, actually," Stan says with a smile. "Homemade 'n everything."

The world might burn soon, and it would all be Stan's fault, but until then, there'd always be pizza with his Mystery Twins, and really, they're all he cared about anymore anyway.


	9. Gf cannibal dark fic TW CHILD ABUSE and BILL IS AWFUL

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact I triggered myself into tears writing this so its with no fuckin small amount of glee i consign it to the void. Bill ran a cannibal cafe and was gonna serve up the kids. I may be fucked up but at least im not THAT fucked up

Bill Cipher could hear the small whimpers and sniffles from all the way back in the elegant dining room, and it makes him smile and chuckle as he slips the jingling golden keys out from his pocket and inserts them, one by one into the locks on the kitchen door, turning them fast enough to make them click loudly. He can almost hear the intakes of breath as the anticipation and fear grows and his smile darkens. He likes it when they know he’s coming.

He hums a jaunty tune as he pulls open the door, his heeled boots clicking on the polished, spotless floor.  
“Good evening, kiddos! How was your day? Did you miss me~?”  
All the hushed sounds stop for a second, and then the scrambling begins. He can hear them looking for a place to hide as he approaches the walk in freezer turned ‘containment area’. Behind that heavy metal door was tonight’s ingredients, though they’re a little raw to his taste.

He knocks on the door with one finger. “Little pigs, little pigs, can I come in?” And then slides the heavy deadbolt until it clangs into its holder. Silence. He chuckles and then pulls open the door.

Inside, just as he knew they would be, are two nubile children, twins, with lovely brown eyes and terrified expressions, holding each other in the corner of the padded cell. He knows them by name, but doesn’t use them. After all, who names their steak?  
“How are you two doing? Good? Excellent. We’ve got a lot of work to do tonight so I hope you’re ready~”

The cell smells of urine, and it makes Bill click his tongue in exasperation. “Who pissed in here?” He demands, his sweet tone vanished. He points a claw and the boy. “You, was it you?”

Dipper Pines clutches his sister closer. This was a nightmare he never thought he’d ever face; but then again, who ever thought they were going to be abducted? He flinches at the tone of Bill’s voice and doesn’t speak. It wasn’t him who peed, but he’s not going to reveal that. He’s not going to talk at all.  
In his arms, Mabel whimpers quietly.

That’s all it takes. “It was YOU.” The demon hisses and then storms into the cell with fury on his face. Dipper cries out and tries to shield her, but Bill grabs Mabel’s arm and drags her, screaming from his arms. “MABEL!!! LET HER GO, PLEASE LET HER GO!!”  
Mabel strains her free arm and hits Bill with it but he just laughs. “I was on the fence about who I’d cook first, but now I know. Eeny, meeny, miney YOU, Shooting Star. Congratulations!”

She flails and screams and kicks at him but it has no effect. “DIPPER HELP ME!!”

“MABEL! NO!!” Dipper lunges at Bill, but the demon just kicks him in the stomach and hurls him to the ground. “ENOUGH! Stay down, Pine Tree, you’ll get your turn.”  
And then, laughing, he slams the door shut and leaves Dipper alone to cry.

Bill drags the still struggling preteen girl towards another door set into the wall, ignoring her pleas and cries. He yanks open the door and shoves her through it, not caring when she stumbles and falls onto the tiles. “Shower. Now.”  
He closes and locks the door, watching through the window as she just lays on the floor, shaking. For Syndel’s sake, he doesn’t have time or patience for this. “DO YOU WANT ME TO KILL YOUR PRECIOUS BROTHER?!”  
That does the trick, Mabel scrambles to her feet, tears streaking down her cheeks. “N0-No please! I’ll do what you want! I-I’ll do whatever you want!”  
“THEN SHOWER, BITCH!”

He slams the window covering shut and runs a hand through his golden hair. This is far more work then the others had been, but then the others had been adults. He pauses as he hears the water in the room turn on and hears the little gasp of shock at how cold it must be and another growl escapes him.


	10. Some experimental writing, Mullet Stan meets Self insert no tw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pretty self explanitory. Stan meets me, kinda boring tho

Xavier leans against the brickwork of the old bookstore’s wall and stares out across the parking lot with guarded grey eyes. If they had anything to smoke, they’d probably look cooler, but as they were dressed in faded grey jeans ripped at the knees and a black sweater shirt with the image of a bird’s skull stitched onto it, there wasn’t much more they could do to look more dysfunctional if they tried. The still cold May wind blows their mahogany curls out of their face and with a little shiver, they slip their hands into their pockets.

Xav wasn’t a stranger to the cold, Calgary’s weather was always some brand of stupid and unpredictable, be it warm chinooks in -40-degree weather, or snow in July. Never mind the almost tornados that considered forming multiple times every summer and the heatwaves that practically melt people into puddles on the really hot days... The locals had a saying- “If you don’t like the weather now, just wait five minutes,” and boy was it true.

After about ten more minutes, they decide that the person they were going to meet flaked out and pushes up off the wall, hands slipping out of their sweater pockets. It wasn’t a rough area of the city and there was no chance of being accosted by creepos, mainly because it was only 1 pm in the afternoon, so they felt safe wandering around. Xavier walks under the +15 bridge and takes a moment to slow down and admire the architecture, the coiling steel art installation that towers over them, reminiscent of the tentacles of some sea monster emerging through the sea of cobbles underfoot. They’re lost in their own thoughts and don’t pay much thought to the person that comes up from behind them, bumping against them and hurrying away-at least until they notice their pocket feels suspiciously lighter than it should.  
Slipping a hand into their pocket, they let out a curse when they find their wallet gone, a curse and then a laugh devoid of humor as they quickly look up again. They see the thief hurrying away, pocketing their wallet, and Xav huffs and picks up the pace, following at a distance. They’re usually nonconfrontational and faced with a problem usually chooses the compromise, but that wallet had all of their identification and benefit cards and there was no way they could just let it go.

The person looks male from behind, broad shoulders, hood up, mannish walk, and Xav hesitates. They are barely 125 pounds soaking wet, and 5’4 in height, and as stated before, not a fighter. They try not to think of the worst case scenarios as they continue to follow the man. When he turns off down a smaller, empty side street, Xavier grits their teeth. Confined spaces, always fun. They step more cautiously, but quicken their pace, and finally, work up the courage to speak.

“Tough break, snatching a wallet that doesn’t have more than five dollars in it.”  
They keep their voice light, friendly, but there’s a tiny tremor in it. The man, the thief stops dead and then slowly turns around.

Xavier’s first impression is that they were right, it is a man, and they are….  
Big.  
Well, definitely bigger than them. They resist the urge to take a step back and hold their ground, looking the thief in the face.   
He’s older than them, with an unshaven but slightly stubbly jaw and long brown hair. And the thing that strikes them most about him is his eyes. They’re dark brown and tired and staring into them reveals that they’ve seen a lot. Far more than Xavier’s own. They just look at each other for a moment or two, and then the man speaks, looking away and pulling out the little black wallet, holding it loosely. “Only five dollars?”  
Xavier has never heard a person more disappointed, and it makes them frown. “Well, only five dollars cash, but you’re welcome to it.”  
The man looks slightly surprised for a few moments, but then wordlessly holds it out to them. “No… I shouldn’t have taken it, I’m sorry.” His voice is gruff and holds an accent Xav cant place.  
They reach out and take the wallet, opening it and thumbing through the cards. The man looks visibly guilty. “I didn’t take anythin’, don’t worry.”

After a moment, Xav pulls a card free and slips the wallet back into their pocket, safe. Their eyes scan over the man, in his brown jacket too warm for the weather, his unkempt appearance. They follow questions around their mind in ever decreasing circles until they come to a single conclusion. “Hey,” they ask carefully. “You like McDonalds?”  
The way the man instantly seems a little more alert confirms their suspicions. Either he has nowhere to go and is living on the streets, or he’s passing through and broke. Either way, it doesn’t matter, Xav always believed that if they could help, there was no reason why they shouldn’t. “You uh, want to come with and get some?”

He’s considering it, they can tell, considering whether to trust the person he just tried to rob, whether they’re telling the truth or going to lead him right to the cops. But in the end, he just says; “I thought you only had five dollars?”

Xavier feels a little smile quirk their lips and they hold up the gold and blue debit card they pulled from the leather wallet. “Five dollars on me. I’m not used to dealing with cash, honestly. But, food, yes, no?”  
Another long moment and then he shakes his head, looking at the ground. “But I’ll take a bus ticket or two if you’ve got some?.”

“Sorry man, all I’ve got is five dollars. I mean, you can use 3.50$ for the bus if you break it…”  
They shrug. “You want it?”

More considering. It seemed this man didn’t do anything without weighing all the pros and cons first. After a moment, he clears his throat a little. “Is….is the food off the table?”

Xav laughs softly. “No.”  
They turn, then, turn their back on the strange man with the strong face and hunted eyes, walking back to the opening of Stephen Ave, before looking back. The stranger is following. That’s good enough for now, so Xavier turns and leads the way past all the cool shops and the old theater, the people walking by paying no mind to the average looking boy and his darker shadow. When they reach the McDonalds, they hold the door open for the man and then slip inside. Its surprisingly not packed with single mothers and squalling infants, so Xav motions to the array of booths and tables. “Pick a spot, any spot. I’ll be back with some food in just a sec’.”

And then, again, they walk away, towards the counter.  
Ordering food is always fun, but this time they know exactly what they’re going to get. “Two large rootbeers, three cheeseburgers with extra pickles and two poutines, thanks.”  
They’re given the ticket and go to wait in line at the other counter, not looking back once. If that man was gone by the time they got back, oh well, there wouldn’t be much Xav could do but enjoy the delicious food they bought.

Tray in hand, they thank the people working the counter and turn, trying not to let the surprise show in their expression, because he is still there, and looking right at them- well more at the tray.  
Xavier walks over and sets it down on the table, before slipping into the chair across from him, and takes one of the cheeseburgers and poutine and a drink and sets them off to the side of the tray. “I got you cheeseburgers, I hope you like pickles because I always get extra.”  
The man wastes no time in picking up one of the burgers, pausing only to thank them quickly before unwrapping it and biting down. His eyes close as he chews and Xavier smiles when he’s not looking. Feels good, man.

They let him eat until its three-quarters of the way gone before unwrapping their straw and sticking it into their drink, taking a long sip. “So,” they start, reaching for their own burger. “I’m Xavier. What’s your name?”  
The man swallows the mouthful he’s chewing and then clears his throat. “Stan.”

Stan. The man had a name, and it went a long way to humanize him, more than just some strange grifter or pickpocket. A real person with their own hopes and their own struggles.  
“Would saying ‘pleased to meet you’ be weird? You did nearly rob me.”

Stan makes a bit of a face, opening his mouth to apologize again, but Xav shakes their head, cutting him off. “No it won’t. Pleased to meet you Stan. Are you American?”  
He blinks at them a moment before looking down again. “Yeah..?”  
His confusion is understandable, so they just smile. “Your accent. I was just wondering where it was from. If...you don’t mind me asking, what are you doing in the city?”

Stan doesn’t answer right away, looking down at his poutine with his fork poised above the cheesy mess of fries. Then after a moment, he seems to shake himself and responds. “Not sure. Just passin’ through, I think.”

Xav resists the urge to put their elbow on the table and their head in their hand. “Okay….well… pardon the assumption, but if you’re stealing from people,” They lower their voice considerably- “You’re not really in a good position... If you need bus tickets, I can get you bus tickets, but the only busses leaving the city cost upwards of 50$ and I’m afraid I can’t spare that much.”

He shakes his head, the fork spearing some fries. After a moment, he looks back up. “Wouldn’t ask you too. Plenty of cars nearby.”  
That’s all he says, returning to his meal, and leaving Xav to puzzle out what he meant. When they get it, their eyebrows shoot up. “You want to…”  
They pause, looking around before leaning in a little. “You’re planning on stealing a car?”  
Despite being somewhat of a model citizen- somewhat being that they still pirate movies on the internet and sometimes ride the train without tickets- the thought doesn’t make them want to run straight to a peace officer on patrol.

Stan smirks, just the hint of one edge of his mouth lifting for a fraction. “Wouldn't be the first time.”  
Xav lets out a breath. “And here I thought I was just going to ride a train up to six stations and then stare at cats through a window for an hour today. Meeting a master criminal was not on my itinerary. Where are you even going?”

Stan suddenly looks askance at them, calculating. “What makes you think I’m a master criminal?”  
Xav shrugs, taking another sip of their drink. “Lucky guess? You kind of look like one, no offense?”

They jump as he laughs rich and amused; startled, but also pleased. “Something funny?”  
“No, No, its nothing. Thanks for the food.”

Xav raises an eyebrow. “You already said thank you, but you’re welcome again. I’ve been in tough situations before, it sucks, and I had people to help me out then, so I always pay it forward.”  
Stan looks at them a moment, a long one, and it makes them a little nervous. “..What?”

“There need to be more people like you in the world,” is all he says, before he finishes up the poutine and sets the empty container back onto the tray. He taps his fingers against the table a few times before speaking up again. “Oregon.”

Now its Xavier’s turn to look at him funny. “Huh?”  
He messes with some of his hair and doesn’t look directly at them. “You asked where I’m going. It's Oregon.”  
“Wh….”  
It takes them a moment to get their words straight. “Why are you….here, then? Fall asleep on the greyhound?”

Stan makes another face, a face that screams there’s more of a story behind this than he’s about to share. “I’m…” He lets out something of a sigh. “I’m banned from Montana.”  
Xav’s eyebrow arches, but they don’t ask questions. Its not their business. “I don’t know much about the US because I don’t live there, but... You can get to Oregon through Canada?”  
He nods. “Easily.”

Well then. That was something. Something interesting. “Wow. Well, I wish you luck, Stan. I hope you find whatever you’re looking for!”  
Xavier leans back, a little blown away still. Everyone has a story, and no matter how mundane their appearance, its probably several shades of incredible.  
Stan smiles a little, looking a lot more relaxed then he had when they had first spoken. “Yeah…. Me too.”

Xav senses that their meeting, however interesting, is drawing to a close, and moves to stand, and when he doesn’t stop them, they hold out their hand to him to shake. He takes it, and his fingers are bigger and rougher than theirs. Hands that have been in all sorts of unimaginable situations. Xavier makes sure their grip is firm and gives it a shake. “Good luck, friend.”  
He murmurs something in return, something like thanks’ and then that’s it. Xav slips their hands back into the pockets of their sweater, gives him one final smile, and then heads for the door. It opens, admitting a rush of brisk, city scented air, and then the door is closing, closing, closed. They don’t see him leave, but they do wonder; would he find what he was seeking? Would he be happy about it? What kind of car is he even going to take? What was the deal with Montana? And what will they have for supper?

And just like that, whatever had allowed their two worlds to come together for that briefest of thirty minutes allows them to drift apart again, and life goes on.


	11. Space au mabel meets space au dipper no tw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My portal mabel meets a demon dipper

Nova slams back the bright green shot and gasps at the burn as it travels down her throat, along with a sour apple taste that makes her mouth ache and water. She looks down at the bar, the neon lights and strobes making her feel dizzy, as if the thumping music wasn’t already doing that.  
She groans and motions for another shot, barely caring as another unknown person slides into the seat next to her.  
“I’m no expert on making good choices, but I think you might have had enough.”

The male voice is concerned but also tinged with amusement, and it makes Nova’s drunken hackles rise.  
She turns her entire torso towards the stranger and fixes him with a darkeyed glare.  
She only flinches a little when she meets his own, equally brown, equally dark, just like hers.  
He’s handsome, with half a beard and a scar on his cheek and his hair is fluffy and a mess—and longer then hers.  
She parts her lips in surprise and his own quirk into a smirk. “Well, I wasn’t expecting a Mabel in the seediest club on this planet. What a surprise.”

Nova narrows her eyes and picks up the shot that had just been placed in front of her. “And I thought Dippers were too busy being nerds to have any style,” She casts a critical eye over the black and red clothes he’s wearing and throws the alcohol back. “Or fun.” 

The Dipper laughs and shakes his head. “You don’t know anything about me, and if you did, you’d run. Barkeep?”  
He orders something that comes on fire, and casually blows the flames down before taking a sip, his eyes sparkling with....something.  
Instantly, she’s drawn to him. “Oh? You’ve got a secret, have you? Well, you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”  
She leans closer, a sly smile playing on her face.

“You’ve got to be joking.”  
He arches an eyebrow. “Pretty girl, nasty establishment, there’s pretty much one thing you’re here for, aren’t you?”  
He flashes her a smile, glittering teeth under the blacklights. “Not interested.”

“What are you talking about?”  
She wants to hit him. Hitting him seems like the appropriate action here. “Did you just insinuate I wanted to /sleep/ with you?”  
He snorts. “Don’t you?”

She’s insulted, truly insulted, but also intrigued. ...in a purely professional way.   
“What’s your name?”  
He blinks, arching an eyebrow again. “You....know my name?”

Nova crosses her arms. “You’ve clearly reinvented yourself, especially with that attitude. So tell me what you call yourself now.”  
“What if I don’t want to?”

Man this version of her own twin was cocky, and she’s still not sure if he’s flirting with her or not. Then she gets an idea. “Well I can always incapacitate you and sell you on the black market.”

That makes the Dipper laugh uproariously. He’s unreasonably attractive for her brother, and its annoying.  
She presses on before he can reply, and prays her hunch is right.  
“I’m pretty sure a lot of people would pay out the ass for a demon human hybrid.”

Suddenly he’s not laughing any more, but staring at her intensely. She notices him tighten his right fist almost reflexively. Its also gloved. She reaches for it swiftly, but he yanks it out of reach. “Do not. Touch. Me,” he almost growls, very changed from how he had been.  
“Real stuffy in here. I’m going for some air.”  
And then he turns and leaves, slipping through the crush of bodies and is gone.

Nova looks down at her empty shotglass, silent. She had been right. That’s almost worse then being wrong and revealing her own hand.  
She looks at the Dipper’s abandoned drink, then swigs it to the dregs, a smokey burnt taste lingering on her tongue. It fills her with liquid courage, which is all just as well, as she has a feeling he’ll be pretty difficult to kill.

When she leaves the club, the street is dark and empty, but she knows that if someone was hunting her, she’d stay out of sight and follow them to a less populated area for a confrontation, but maybe this demon Dipper will surprise her.  
She slips her hands into the pockets of her coat and starts walking in a random direction, not caring where her feet lead her as long as its away from the noise and the lights.  
She walks fearlessly, because anyone or anything that’s looking to take advantage of her would quickly find that their efforts were better suited to other prey.  
Its not long after she turns down a dark slipway that she hears measured footsteps behind her. She doesn’t change her pace and leads her pursuer deeper into an industrial part of the city, where the streetlights are few and the fewer souls out and about wouldn’t run to the Guardare at the sight or sound of a gunfight.  
Finally, she’s in where she wants to be and turns on her heel, an abrupt about face that catches the Dipper from the club frozen in mid step. She smiles. “Didn’t take you for a creep, but here we are.”  
He just pulls his hands from his own pockets and regards her. “Didn’t take you for a bounty hunter, but here we are.”

Nova laughs softly. “I’m not really a conventional hunter, though I take it you’ve realized that by now?”  
She lets her hands drop from the coat and hang at her sides. “You really shouldn’t have followed me.”

“What else was I supposed to do, let you hunt me down on your own time?”  
Still cocky, still confident. A brand of confidence she knows all too well. She faces it on the regular. Nova starts walking forwards towards him. “I wouldn’t have hunted you down. I was going to let you zip off into space, and pretend I wasn’t skilled enough to catch you. But again, here we are. Here /you/ are, and I have no choice now.”  
She points at him, reaching for her gun, a special brand of quantum destabilizer made especially for her with very specific parameters. “I’m going to have to kill you.”

“That’s unfortunate. I’m going to have to…. you know, not let you do that.”  
His eyes narrow and his expression darkens as Nova lifts her gun and arms it.  
“I’d really rather settle this some other way, you /are/ my sister after all. You sure you’re not down to fuck? That would make this so much easier.”

Nova lets out a sound of indignation. “What? No, that's ... shut up!”   
She raises the gun and points it at the Dipper still standing across from her. “You should run. Go on, I’ll give you a headstart.”  
She motions with the gun for him to get going.  
He just laughs. “You really don’t want to do this, do you? You’re as reluctant as I am. So lets just… not. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Nova swallows and primes the gun, a high pitched whine coming from it as the lights on the side change from blue to orange. “Yeah, well I wanna hurt you. You’re a demon. This is my job.”

The Dipper starts walking closer, raising both hands. “Yeah and I’m also your brother. What kind of life have you had up to this point that you’d aim a gun at your twin?”

She grits her teeth and glares at him. “Stop right there. Not another step, or I’ll shoot.”

“You’re not going to.”

“I will!” She yells, her voice echoing through the night. “Don’t test me!”

“Axis,” he says, locking eyes with her again.

“What?”

“You asked me what name I went by. Its Axis. What’s yours?”

Nova falters, just for a moment, and Axis takes another step towards her. “...”

He swallows, hands still up. “I wont hurt you if you shoot me, but I’d rather you didn’t, so if you wouldn’t mind, putting the gun away?”


	12. Part 2 of my space au pines meet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As title says

When she leaves the club, the street is dark and empty, but she knows that if someone was hunting her, she’d stay out of sight and follow them to a less populated area for a confrontation, but maybe this demon Dipper will surprise her.  
She slips her hands into the pockets of her coat and starts walking in a random direction, not caring where her feet lead her as long as its away from the noise and the lights.  
She walks fearlessly, because anyone or anything that’s looking to take advantage of her would quickly find that their efforts were better suited to other prey.  
Its not long after she turns down a dark slipway that she hears measured footsteps behind her. She doesn’t change her pace and leads her pursuer deeper into an industrial part of the city, where the streetlights are few and the fewer souls out and about wouldn’t run to the Guardare at the sight or sound of a gunfight.  
Finally, she’s in where she wants to be and turns on her heel, an abrupt about face that catches the Dipper from the club frozen in mid step. She smiles. “Didn’t take you for a creep, but here we are.”  
He just pulls his hands from his own pockets and regards her. “Didn’t take you for a bounty hunter, but here we are.”

Nova laughs softly. “I’m not really a conventional hunter, though I take it you’ve realized that by now?”  
She lets her hands drop from the coat and hang at her sides. “You really shouldn’t have followed me.”

“What else was I supposed to do, let you hunt me down on your own time?”  
Still cocky, still confident. A brand of confidence she knows all too well. She faces it on the regular. Nova starts walking forwards towards him. “I wouldn’t have hunted you down. I was going to let you zip off into space, and pretend I wasn’t skilled enough to catch you. But again, here we are. Here /you/ are, and I have no choice now.”  
She points at him, reaching for her gun, a special brand of quantum destabilizer made especially for her with very specific parameters. “I’m going to have to kill you.”

“That’s unfortunate. I’m going to have to…. you know, not let you do that.”  
His eyes narrow and his expression darkens as Nova lifts her gun and arms it.  
“I’d really rather settle this some other way, you /are/ my sister after all. You sure you’re not down to fuck? That would make this so much easier.”

Nova lets out a sound of indignation. “What? No, that's ... shut up!”   
She raises the gun and points it at the Dipper still standing across from her. “You should run. Go on, I’ll give you a headstart.”  
She motions with the gun for him to get going.  
He just laughs. “You really don’t want to do this, do you? You’re as reluctant as I am. So lets just… not. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Nova swallows and primes the gun, a high pitched whine coming from it as the lights on the side change from blue to orange. “Yeah, well I wanna hurt you. You’re a demon. This is my job.”

The Dipper starts walking closer, raising both hands. “Yeah and I’m also your brother. What kind of life have you had up to this point that you’d aim a gun at your twin?”

She grits her teeth and glares at him. “Stop right there. Not another step, or I’ll shoot.”

“You’re not going to.”

“I will!” She yells, her voice echoing through the night. “Don’t test me!”

“Axis,” he says, locking eyes with her again.

“What?”

“You asked me what name I went by. Its Axis. What’s yours?”

Nova falters, just for a moment, and Axis takes another step towards her. “...”

He swallows, hands still up. “I wont hurt you if you shoot me, but I’d rather you didn’t, so if you wouldn’t mind, putting the gun away?”


	13. Zombie angst drabble, tw implied future suicide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel lost everyone in a zombie apocalypse and her family was still back there but they were already dead. Better to die to family then live alone yeeeeah i dunno what I was up to writing this one

The low rumble of the silver Accord on the slick highway and the swish of the windshield wipers as they battled the grey curtains of rain that kept coming at it as it drove further into the dead zone was really the only sounds in the world for Mabel. She stared dead ahead, both hands firmly on the wheel, and tried her hardest not to glance at the ruined buildings she passed, farmhouses, small towns, empty and ghostlike with windows broken in and all occupants either gone or….worse.  
She tried not to think about just what worse meant in this situation. Tried not to...lose her nerve.

This was stupid, this whole plan was stupid, her endgame was stupid, the rain was stupid, and she really wanted to turn the car around and go back to where it was safe, but she’d come so far already, and the amount of gas she had in the tank is, well it was beginning to run low. According to the map spread out on the passenger seat and scribbled on in various places with red sharpie- notes and X’es and one area circled rather heavily until the ink bled through the paper- she was closer to her destination then she was to safety.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something move- something big dart across the road ahead of her and she let out a scream and slammed on the brakes, the car skidding on the wet asphalt several feet before coming to a stop. The deer, startled, but otherwise fine bounded off into the trees on the other side of the highway and Mabel just sat there, heart pounding painfully fast in her chest, hands white on the wheel. Then, she let out a laugh. It wasn’t a happy laugh, it was more a laugh of….hopelessness. Bitterness.   
The Accord’s headlights illuminated only several feet in front of her, the weather was getting worse. With shaky hands, she checked the map once more, a tightening knot in her stomach when she realized just how close she was to the town formally known as Gravity Falls. A place she had once wanted to make her home when she grew up. Funny how things seemed to come full circle.  
She had lost everyone she cared about there- and here she was, going back.  
She took a deep breath, and then another for good measure, peering out through the growing gloom of both the storm and approaching nightfall. One more day. Mabel made sure the doors were locked before turning the car off.  
It didn’t matter what came to investigate the car at night; so long as she was quiet, and still, she’d be safe for the time being.

She folded up the map carefully, and then tipped the seat back, reached behind her for the blanket she had brought and pulled it over her.

The sound of the rain wasn’t so much soothing as it was white noise, ensuring that she couldn’t hear anything beyond the glass…..and nothing could hear her.  
In the morning, she’d go over her plan one last time. She had everything she needed, everything she could remember. She just hoped it would be enough. Either way, she finds herself thinking as her eyes slip closed, I won’t be going back.


	14. Grimoire falls drabble 3 dipper tries magic no tw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper keeps a secret and learns a neat trick

Secrets. Secrets weren’t always bad, but still, Dipper wasn’t fond of them.  
He had been raised to always tell the truth, whenever it was applicable, which was always. If he stuck his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, he owned up to it. That was why, despite him being something like .035 milliseconds the younger twin, the adults around them trusted his judgement over Mabel’s. Usually. Their Great Uncle Stan seemed to be bucking that trend.

Secrets, if he had any, he’d tell.   
But the old, worn journal he found under a loose floorboard beneath his bed in the attic room he shared with his sister? It wasn’t one.  
At least, that’s what he kept telling himself, even after he stayed up till ungodly hours poring through it, trying to decipher its codes and the neatly penned scrawl within its pages. Diagrams of plants, fantastical animals and, as far as he could tell….spells. Even as he hid it back under the floor when he was done, and ran upstairs regularly during the day to check that it was still there.

If Stan asked, he’d own up to it. That was his mantra, day in, day out, as he waited eagerly for his twin to fall asleep so he could slip under the covers with it and read it by flashlight, whispering the words under his breath, poring over every page with an uncontrollable hunger, a desire to *know.*  
Sure he knew of the local legend, that a witch lived, or once lived, in the woods beyond the Mystery Shack, how could he not, Stan used it as the crux of his business and played it up to every angle. But he had a feeling that not even Stan knew about the journal.  
Because it was so well hidden…  
And because the spells inside it were real.

Dipper could recall the exact moment he did magic for the first time, and how it felt. It had been almost 90 degrees outside that day, swelteringly hot, and all that heat had risen to the top floor of the shack and made sleeping nigh impossible.  
Mabel was already asleep; she could sleep through anything-- and Dipper had idly flipped pages, looking at them but not seeing their contents, not really. The window was open but the air outside was dead, whatever breeze there was, stiflingly warm.

After wiping his sticky forehead for what felt like the umpteenth time, and turning his pillow over to the not-actually- cool side yet again, he was quite fed up.  
“I wish there was a proper breeze,” he grumbled, then stuck his flashlight between his teeth as he readjusted his position of the uncomfortably damp sheets.  
The book falls from his lap to the bed, pages settling on one he hadn’t read before, or accidentally skipped. He picked it back up, shining the light on the words with an excited look in his eyes, and then read over the first sentence aloud.

“When you find yourself in need or require a little push, simple air displacement will always be the answer.”  
He read on, and when he got to the incantation, something felt different. It was like there was a tingling in his fingertips, a light current running from the book into him, travelling up his arm, and strangely enough, settling behind his eyes.  
He rubs them with his free hand and then starts to speak the incantation out loud, and as soon as he finishes, the curtains on the window are blown open as a sudden rush of cool air floods through the room and brings the temperature down several degrees instantly.  
Dipper feels his hair blown about at first, but then it's more like its being played with, because when the whoosh quiets, it's still cold inside and he has the feeling that the air is….waiting for him.

“Th-Thank you,” he stammers out, unsure what else to say. “You can….go now?”  
And then the feeling of tingling and the breeze settles, the curtains stop moving, and Dipper closes the book and stows it under his pillow. A yawn escapes his lips, and with his body cool enough to sleep, it wastes no time surging back in to claim him.  
He decides he’ll figure out what the heck happened in the morning, and turns over onto his side, falling to sleep almost instantly.


	15. Grimoire falls au drabble 4 stancest implied

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan gets a postcard

The postcard was from a place called Gravity Falls, and the name tickled the sensation of recognition in the back of his mind. The address is unfamiliar, but the town name, less so. Its where Ford said he was going all those years ago.  
He flips it over and stares at the three words scrawled on the back hastily in red ink.

I need you.

Its not even signed, and that makes it so much worse.

Did his brother really think he’d drop everything and go on a road trip across the country just to.... to what? What did ‘I need you’ even mean? He’d only ever heard those three words out of needy lovers in the dark of night, and he’s pretty sure—no he’s damn sure that’s not what Ford means, however much he wants it to be otherwise.

Stan finds himself crinkling the postcard in his grip, holing it so tightly his fingers are white. No, he tells himself firmly, he’s not going.  
Its not that he resents his twin for wanting to leave—he had been different, so much so that no matter how much Stan had told him it didn’t matter to him—well it mattered to Ford. Enough that he would just up and leave his life, his future behind in search of answers. In search of somewhere he fit in. No, he resents that Ford didn’t take with him.

In a fit of emotion, he crumples the postcard into a ball, intending to lob it into the trashcan beside the desk—only to hold it closer.  
He hadn’t heard from Ford in what, ten years? More then that. Was he really going to ignore this apparent cry for help?

Carefully, so he doesn’t tear it, Stan unfolds the missive and rereads the message. Studies the words closely.  
I need you.  
That could mean anything from ‘I need you to come and visit’ to ‘I need you, my life is in danger.’  
And if he had to be honest, with the way the words were written, messily, urgently, he fears its the latter.

“Stanford, what have you gotten yourself into,” he wonders aloud, then looks around the crappy motel room. Its bug free and has running water, but that’s all it has going for it really.  
None of his get rich quick schemes had been taking off lately, and he had been forced to do more....unsavoury things as of late to make ends meet.  
He looks back at the postcard, deliberating. 

At the very least, whatever Ford wanted, he obviously had a place to stay, and a proper bed that he couldn’t feel the springs of? An appealing thought. 

Stan inhales, then lets out a sigh and sets the postcard down on the end table before flopping backwards onto the mattress. It squeaks and he feels the aforementioned springs poking him in his back. He already had nothing, if he went up through canada— he quickly did some calculations. He could pass through canada and come out in washington, and...,  
Well there was no doubt he’d make it there. 

He rubs a hand over his eyes. Was he really doing this? Abandoning his sham of a semi life to answer the mysterious call of a brother who not only abandoned his family—abandoned him?  
There was only one answer in his mind when Stan truly thought about it.

Yes. Yes he was.


	16. Mabel vs the Grim Reaper first drabble tw she’s dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel pissed off the grim reaper so he took her soul and stuck her in a nowhere afterlife place

Mabel Pines opens her eyes and pushes herself up to a sitting position, brushing her hair from her face. She’s lost her hairband somehow and her head is fuzzy. Glancing around her, she sees only grey, mist shrouded landscape, and there’s a chill in the air. Slowly, she stands, and takes a few steps forwards, hugging her arms to her chest.  
“Hello?” She calls out, but her voice is swallowed by the mist. Its quite disconcerting. “Where...am I?”  
She had been with...someone, hadn’t she? Yes, she was certain she had, she had been with two people, one she knew quite well, and one she didn’t. But try as she might, she couldn’t remember what had happened, or where she was.  
“Hello?” She tries again, this time following it up with, “Is anyone there?” Only silence answers her. Mabel frowns and then sticks her chilled hands into the pockets of her sweater and starts walking forwards over the hard packed earth. She had to come up with something, right? Something....anything?  
Eventually, she gets a little annoyed. “This sucks.” The landscape remains flat and grey and when she sees a rock, a reprieve from the nothing, she kicks it hard. It clatters away into the mist, and that’s about all the excitement she gets for what feels like at least half an hour.  
“BLARGH! What’s with this freaky place!? HELLOOOOOO?!?!” Mabel cups her hands over her mouth and yells into the whiteness, swirling mist disrupted by her motions. “WHAT’S GOING ON? WHERE AM I?”  
It fades into nothing like its predecessors. Mabel is about to lose it, but she sees another rock and gives it a vicious kick, sending it skidding off into the nothing until it ends in a faint ‘splash’. Mabel immediately starts after the sound, needing something, anything to distract her from the endless tedium of wandering alone in the whiteness. She breaks into a run when she doesn’t soon find the water, and then lets out a scream as the ground disappears from under her feet and she’s plunged into icy, dark water that closes over her head. Her sweater weighs her down as she struggles for the surface, but the light above her is faint, and she’s running out of air. Silvery bubbles cascade upwards all around her as she panicks, but then she feels the ground under her feet again and the water is gone from around her, though she’s soaked to the bone and shaking from the chill.  
She collapses to her knees and coughs hard, again and again, but the water is completely gone from her lungs too.  
She scrambles backwards from the water’s edge, which she can see placidly lapping at the shore only a few feet away. “What....the heck,” she wheezes, staring at it. Its black as night and reflects the mist swirling above its surface, but she can see it, and the pebbly shore next to it. What kind of place is she in?  
Mabel shivers and starts to feel afraid. Wherever she is, its not...a good place to be. Despite how cold and wet she is, she pulls up the neck of her sweater—after thoroughly wringing it out first—and hides in it. “Its just a dream. Just a really weird, freaky dream...”  
She consoles herself while rocking back and forth next to the water, which, unbeknowest to her, is starting to recede and dry up, leaving only puddles of liquid, smokey aqua behind.  
When Mabel stops hearing the water’s soft hush against the shoreline, she peeks out of her sweater. Its no longer anywhere to be seen, but there’s an asymmetrical puddle next to her, its void like surface rippling slightly. Curious, she crawls forwards over the gravel towards it, and without touching it, peers into it. Her reflection materializes in it, clear as anything, but its...wrong. Her sweater is grey, like the color was leeched out of it, in fact, all of her, all except the shooting star in the center, which is glowing faintly yellow, is grey andwhen she , looks down at her sweater, its the same. “What the?”  
A burst of faint noise, like static heard from a radio jolts her attention back to the puddle and she leans over it a little more to see the darkness within it swirl and lighten, until she’s looking at a greyed out scene from a strange angle. It resolves itself into four people, three adults and one child. Two of them are old, really old, one holding the other back, yelling at something out of her view, and it looks like both of them are furious and ....in pain. That’s what she can see in their expressions, great, terrible pain, and it scares her for some reason. The boy is hiding his face in the younger man’s chest, who has his arms around him and is offering comfort. Behind them, there’s someone on the couch, she can see a shoe but nothing else, and its still too grainy, like old television to see clearly. A single word, or a fragment of a word comes through, and her greyed out eyes widen as she hears it.  
“...ab...el....”  
Who was that? Who had said her name? She leans closer, but her finger slips into the cold water by accident and the puddle image ripples and distorts and then its gone. “No, no no! Argh!” She smashes her fist into it in frustration and then gets to her feet, turning around and wiping her hands on her damp pants. The mist has receded enough for her to see an outline of trees in the distance. She moves towards them, careful of where she steps this time, and the riverstone path beneath her turns into a sort of ....dirt one, one she was familiar with, though she didn’t know why. When she reaches the trees, they too are grey, and strangely insubstantial, she amuses herself a moment with trying to grab their transparent branches before continuing on. Something about this place was familiar, but in a dreamlike way. The mist recedes further, revealing so many more trees, tall and silent, but they seem to be lining the road, leading her...somewhere.  
Mabel exhales and keeps her eyes peeled for any sort of threat that was waiting to jump out at her, because everything about this place was putting her on edge. She needent’ve feared, though, as the path leads her to a car, and behind it, a really strange building. A large sign with lettering on the roof spelled out the words MYSTERY HACK, but both words had been vandelized, dark lines painted through the sign, obscuring them.. She gasps and rushes forwards towards it because its something there, something real in this place of endless mist, almost tripping over something in the sudden grass. She pauses and looks back, then bends to pick up the book that she’d almost fallen over. It too is greyed out, but she can touch it. Its a scrapbook, and from the title and stickers, its clear its....her scrapbook. Just holding it makes her feel like it holds all the secrets she needs answers to.  
Mabel takes it to the front porch of the strange shack and sits on the steps, cracking the scrapbook open. The words are all there, but she can’t read them, scrambled and backwards and muddled as they are. When she looks to the pictures to get a clue, they’re all blank and white. Empty. Useless. Mabel frowns and throws it to the ground in a fit of exasperation. “This is so INFURIATING!” Behind her, the front door of the mystery shack jingles, the bell sound echoing in a weird way as the door opens soundlessly, inviting her in. She can’t see much more then the doorway, its all covered by darkness, like the shadows had made it a home and bred inside enough to cover the entire building.  
Mabel shudders, but then stands, and with halting footsteps, steps inside. 

The inside of the room resolves into some sort of shop, becoming visible as soon as she steps through the threshold, the darkness slurping up-away into the corners of the room before vanishing into the cracks. Its kind of disturbing. The emptiness that is left is... predatory. Like something is waiting to pounce. And the longer she stands there, the more things she can hear. Not good things, scratching and growling and creeping in the dark. With sudden unease, she retreats back outside, breathing hard. “You’re okay, Mabel... you’re okay. Its just a creepy building in the not-woods. Its just a... mystery shack filled with...nightmares.” Spotting the scrapbook lying on the ground where she had tossed it, she picks it up and gives it a cursory glance through again. “Maybe this will help me after all?” She tucks it under her arm and then faces the open front door of the mystery shack again and squares her shoulders. “Y-You got this. Just a shack. G-gonna figure out what happened... gonna go home.”  
With the self encouragement acting like a shield, she feels brave enough to continue forwards and step back into the gift shop. Its the same as it was before, grey and fuzzy. Mabel takes a quick look around, not sure what to do first. The shelves are stocked with random items; bobbleheads, snow globes, stickers, pins, knicknacks, question mark merchandise and books. She picks up a grey snow globe and gives it a shake and it glitches in her hand like a corrupted arcade game would. She quickly puts it back and moves on, passing her eyes over several books labelled ‘cryptids and where to find them’ before stopping at a pile of hats with simple tree motifs on them. “Dipper,” she says softly, and picks one up. It glitches violently in her hand, and then seems to stabilize, and the feeling that she knows this hat, and that word is overwhelming. She takes the hat and moves towards the mirror set into the wall and fits the hat onto her head. She watches her reflection for a moment, and then flicks the hat. “That aught to do the trick..”  
Like lightning behind her eyes, she remembers. She remembers Dipper, her dorky, sometimes cute, always awkward twin, with her since birth, the other half of her. She fumbles the scrapbook and opens it, and there, right before her eyes, a picture starts to appear, a boy with a hat like the one she was wearing, smiling awkwardly at being photographed, next to the book he was reading on a couch. She touches the picture with two fingers and then remembers the puddle. The boy, that had been Dipper! He had seemed so sad. She wondered why, and reluctantly takes the hat from her head and sets it back on the rack. As much as she wanted to, she didn’t think she could take it with her.  
There was something familiar about this room that was driving her batty, so she walks past the shelves and over to the counter, setting the scrapbook on it while she slipped behind the register and messed with the buttons. The register chings loudly and pops open a drawer, but its not full of money, exactly. She lifts up a piece of paper with a crude drawing of a man on it and the words ‘Stan Bucks’ scribbled onto it and frowns. Suddenly the words ‘No refunds’ comes to her mind, and she laughs. Silly Grunkle Stan.   
Mabel freezes. Stan, stan? Stan! She knew that name too! She slams the register closed, the stan buck crumpling in her fist as she moves for the scrapbook and opens it, flipping the page. There, the title of the page, labelled Fun with Grunkle Stan is surrounded by kitty and fish stickers and as she watches, the photos start to develop, her and Dipper and an old man, fighting zombies, and going fishing, and making cupcakes. She gasps and then looks at the stan buck in her hand again, and another bolt of lightning hits her. Only this time, its twofold. She remembers her great uncle Stan, and she remembers the Mystery Shack, his business for a long, long time. She and Dipper had lived here for the summer! But...she had a feeling that the summer had just started, so something about that had to be wrong.  
The gift shop didn’t seem like it had any more secrets, so she takes her scrapbook and heads for the other door, the one that led deeper into the shack. For some reason, she stopped at the vending machine, its lights flickering strangely. But pressing buttons didn’t do anything, so with the intent to return, she leaves the room.  
The living room is as it always was, though Mabel doesn’t get any real memories from it, except one where Dipper covered the whole living room in paper to play a really nerdy math game, she does recognize it as the setting from the puddle vision she saw. Whatever had happened, it had happened in the livingroom. Mabel hugs the scrapbook to her chest and keeps moving towards the kitchen. She reaches a crossroads, where there is a set of stairs going up, and more rooms down the hall, and the kitchen door on the right. She hesitates. Something tells her that all three of the directions holds at least something important, but a quick decision sends her into the kitchen. She’d do the stairs next. The kitchen smells like baking. She wanders around, looking into the fridge and cupboards, but its when she opens the oven that she hears....something, a snippet of an old conversation.  
“Careful with that batter, Mabel! We don’t want another gnome infestation like the last time. They’re a nuisance and they always leave handprints in the butter!” A man’s voice, full of ...amusement, was speaking to her. She doesn’t get to hear what her response is, before a new voice, younger, Dipper’s voice chimes in. “Don’t worry, Gr—” he begins, then his words get incredibly garbled for a moment, before returning to normal clarity. “these cupcakes are gonna rock the party. Well done team!”  
And then that’s all. Mabel checks the scrapbook, but she hadn’t unlocked anything new. That was disappointing. She rubs at her forehead and frowns, closing her eyes. “What am I missing? What happened here?” But try as she might, she doesn’t have any new epiphanies. Feeling a little annoyed, she retreats back to the crossroads. The soft whispering on the periphery of her hearing has gotten louder and she looks around, hesitantly before shaking herself. “It's just a wacko dream,” she reminds herself. “Keep moving, Mabel…”  
And with that, she turns towards the stairs.


	17. Grimoire falls drabble what nuber are we on now? Shenanigans no tw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Its only logical that a magic house has magic furniture

Mabel drags herself into the empty kitchen, one hand covering her mouth in a large yawn. At her approach, the breakfast cupboard swings open and she squints at it. “I’m thinking something more then cereal today, sorry.”  
The cupboard door hangs open a moment more, almost forlornly, before shutting with a soft, reserved clunk. “Hey, don’t be upset, I just feel like I want something more filling today!”  
The cupboard gives her one single, disgruntled ‘tak’ before she gives up and goes to look in the fridge. “Yeesh, Grunkle Stan, do you clean this out, ever?” She makes a face at all the containers of bad or rotten or abandoned food stacked inside.

She pulls open the vegetable drawer, expecting wilted lettuce and moldy carrots and comes face to face with an eyeball instead. “EESH!!”  
It stares up at her with a constricting pupil and a baleful stare for several seconds before a slimy green tentacle pokes out and slaps her hand off the handle. It shuts the drawer itself, and she decides to leave well enough alone. “What the actual heck, Stan... “

There’s a loaf of bread on the counter that looks perfectly normal, so she goes for it, inspecting it carefully to make sure its still good. Then she looks back at the breakfast cupboard pointedly. It doesn’t move.   
“C’mon, I need the jam.”  
Nothing. The cupboard is studiously ignoring her.   
She bites her lip. Offending a kitchen cabinet was not something she thought she’d be doing in the fourth week of her summer vacation. “Okaaaay.”  
She huffs and takes the bread over to the kitchen table. “I’ll eat it plain.”  
She’s not going to apologize to the shelving. Even if it was sentient, she didn’t do anything wrong! If she didn’t want to eat cereal four days in a row, that was perfectly legal, wasn’t it?  
She pulls a slice of bread from the bag and stares at the cupboard while taking a big bite and letting out a huff.

The sound of footsteps makes her turn, the slice still hanging from her lips. Its just Dipper, though, looking groggy and with his hair sticking up like a porcupine’s quills in the back. It looks like he just rolled out of bed too.  
“Morning Mabel,” He says, then stops and blinks at her. “Do I want to know why you’re eating a slice of bread without anything on it?”

She pulls it from her mouth. “The breakfast cupboard is being contrary again.”

Dipper stifles a yawn and then moves over to the fridge, peering inside. Mabel takes the opportunity to finish her slice of bread as she watches him pull a face at the contents too. “Okay, the pizza for a week thing? Makes total sense now.”

“I know right?” She reaches into the bread bag once more, for two more slices. “Its like Grunkle Stan doesn’t know how to take care of children. Speaking of, where is he?”

“Still asleep, I think. Its his ‘day off’, remember.”

Mabel taps her hand on the table. “Oh right, so does that mean we have the house to ourselves for a while?”

Dipper had pulled out a container of yogurt and was cautiously prying it open when he catches the tone his sister is adopting. “What? Oh no, nuh uh. Mabel, no.”  
“Come onnnnnn this place is full of secrets and magic! Stan told us he’d teach us, but he hasn’t yet, and its been almost a month!”

Dipper looks into the yogurt, then pushes it aside. He turns to look at his twin. “Have you forgotten what happened the last time we messed with things we didn’t understand?”

Mabel flinches and then looks away and down. “That’s different. I… I didn’t know what I was doing.”  
“Mabel…”  
“I’m not going to do it again-”  
“Mabel!” Dipper frowns at her. “You have to take this seriously. Magic isn’t a joke, its dangerous. We have to be careful around it.”

“Sooooo you’re going to tell Stan about the spell book you found under the floorboards in the attic, right?”  
Dipper suddenly looks away. “Hey, that’s….”

“The same thing, bro bro. You can’t tell me not to be interested when you’re reading forbidden secrets under Stan’s nose!”

Dipper wrinkles his nose. “Its not forbidden! I-I’m sure Stan knows about it, he’s magic, after all. So, if he already knows about it, then I don’t have to tell him! See? It works out.”

“Dipper, I have a bad feeling about that book…”  
“Mabel, you used a necromancy spell to bring WaddLe’s back as a zombie pig, and he almost killed someone. I think you’re a bad judge of books.”  
Mabel stuffs another slice of bread into her face to stop herself from calling him a mean name as he stretches onto his tiptoes to get the breakfast cupboard open. She could have warned him that it was in a mood, but she was still a little ruffled, and so took guilty pleasure when she heard his yelp as the cupboard door slammed on his hand.


	18. Grimoire falls au drabble x -

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford summons a demon to be his familiar

His hands were sweating. Too much, so he wipes them on his pants and then returns his eyes to the book laid out in front of him, the grainy photographs he took pasted onto the pages, the various notes he made in different coloured inks. Then, when he’s sure, he picks up the paintbrush and continues drawing the circle on the floor around him.   
Taking a smaller brush, he carefully draws in the symbols, everyday, modern day objects in each segment, and then the lines bisecting them; rigidly, meticulously straight.  
He stands and steps out of the circle, looking on at his handiwork. He lifts the journal up and compares it with the cave drawing in the photos. There's just one final thing he needs to draw.

"This is going to change everything," he says to no one but himself, excitement coursing through his veins, dipping the brush once more into the small pot of white paint, before carefully wiping off the excess. He only has one chance to get this right- and it needs to be accurate.

With one fluid, smooth motion, he draws the triangle, as equal on all sides as he can manage it, then the limbs of the creature, the being he wants to bring forth into the material plane. The little hat. And finally, the eye, with its pupil, staring back at him almost knowingly.  
Heart hammering, Stanford Pines pulls the brush away and stares down at his handiwork. The circle is complete. The hardest part is finished.

"Okay," he murmurs softly, resting back on his heels. One more look at his notes, and then he's ready.  
He reaches for the knife, sharp and gleaming, and lifts his hand over the summoning circle, steadying himself a moment before bringing the blade to his skin.  
This is the first time he's done this type of magic, and his resolve wavers for a moment before he sternly tells himself that one small cut isn't painful and for the price of infinite knowledge, its a short and easy price to pay.  
Steeling himself, he drags the sharp edge across his skin, splitting it deeper then he meant to. Blood wells up and he yelps, dropping the knife into the circle. Holding his wrist with now shaking fingers, he watches the blood drip onto the white paint, splashes against the being with one eye, turning it red, with what he hopes is an appropriate offering.

Then, he says the incantation, words he'd studied over long nights of coffee and sleeplessness, read over and over in his mind until he had them memorized down to the inflection of the syllables. He lets the dead language flow from his tongue with impressive cadence and then allows them to fade into the air when he's finished, wrapping gauze around his palm to stop the bleeding.

Then he waits for something awesome to take place. Some bright light to shine down, or up from the circle, the windows to rattle, the floor to shake, things he'd seen in movies. Maybe even a little smoke to fill the room. Something.

Nothing of the sort happens. In fact, nothing happens at all.

Ford is, understandably, disappointed.  
"...What? I don't understand... I did everything right..."  
He lifts the journal and rereads the page, and then again, mouthing the incantation again under his breath to make sure he pronounced it right.

"HIYA, SMART GUY!"

The loud voice comes from behind him, and he jumps, fumbling the book and his glasses almost falling off his face as he turns around sharply. His eyes widen, and he stares.

A glowing golden triangle with one eye is floating above him, brushing non-existent dust off its hat. It has slim limbs and a black bowtie and long eyelashes, and no mouth. Still, it speaks. Loudly. "WELL, WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT? A MAGELING! I HAVEN'T SEEN ONE OF YOU IN A LONG, LONG TIME! DID YOU SUMMON ME ALL BY YOURSELF?"

Ford readjusts his glasses with his injured hand and just nods. "I-I did."   
He has a feeling this being's patronizing him, but he supposes, looking at its clearly otherworldly appearance, that something as powerful and mysterious enough to be written about on prehistoric caves walls deserves some leniences.

"WOW, WELL LET'S SEE HOW YOU DID!"  
The triangular entity floats around him, its hands behind its back as it examines the circle, eye roving over the lines. "MHM, UH-HUH, WOW!"  
It points at the likeness of itself. "YA MESSED UP THE EYE, BUT APART FROM THAT, ITS’ REAL FLATTERING! AND BLOOD, I LOVE THAT STUFF!"  
It snaps its fingers and the blood seeps into the lines like they're being sucked in. The circle glows red and then fades to purple and then morphs to light blue and the being floats into it. “FLAWED ART SKILLS ASIDE, ITS THE INTENT OF THE CASTER THAT MATTERS AND BOY DO YOU HAVE INTENT, SO!”  
It fixes its bowtie and then rolls its slitted pupil down at him. “Let's GET DOWN TO BUSINESS!”

Ford blinks, and the being lowers its eyelid a little, at once looking strangely hungry for a creature without a face. “WHAT’S IT GONNA BE, IQ? MONEY? FAME? POWER? YOU HUMANS ALWAYS WANT THE BASICS, SO WHAT’S IT GOING TO BE? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME, KID?”


	19. Ford and mabel fluff no tw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baking is fun

It was a glorious fall day, the kind of day anyone would spend curled up in front of a window drinking a hot beverage of choice, dressed in their softest, biggest sweater and whiling the hours away watching the leaves fall. But inside a shack near the edge of town, it was anything but calm.  
The air smelled like pumpkin and cinnamon and the kitchen counters and table were covered with cookie cutters and flour and trays upon trays of cookies cooling on racks.  
A teenage girl in an oversized orange sweater, dark blue skirt and black bat earrings is standing in front of the stove, carefully shaping the pumpkin cookie dough she’d made so carefully into little balls on the tray, and humming a cheery tune.  
She was Mabel Pines, and for the day, she was master over the kitchen, since her great-uncle Stan and brother Dipper had gone off to do.... things. Mysterious errands they wouldn’t tell her anything about. She wasn’t fussed though, she technically had the house to herself, even though she wasn’t exactly alone.  
Stan’s brother Ford liked his quiet time, spending most of it down in the basement. It once held a terrible secret, but now was just an open space for him to keep and maintain all of his strange experiments, of which they were many.  
If Ford ever did decide to come up out of the basement, it was usually because there was food around. So it wasn’t totally surprising when she heard a floorboard creak from beyond the kitchen doorway and looked up to see him poking his head in with a hopeful look in his eye. “It smells phenomenal up here, Mabel, what on earth are you baking?.”

She beams proudly. “It better! I didn’t spend all that time for nothing.”  
She laughs at his praise and then, with an oven mitt firmly on one hand, picks up the tray. “Its just cookies, Grunkle Ford. For the class bake sale coming up!”  
The oven’s heat warms her face as she slides the tray in and then closes the door.  
When she turns around again, Ford was over by the table, looking down with appreciation at the rows of pumpkins, bats and skull shaped cookies that were laying out, waiting to be decorated. He reaches his hand out for one, and she rushes forwards and swats his hand. “No, bad grunkle! These aren’t for you.”  
He withdraws his hand with a frown, then gives her a small smile. “Alright, alright. They just smelled so good I couldn’t resist.” He sighs.

She looks at his expression, wistful and a little hungry, and then rolls her eyes.”Okay, okay, you may have some cookies,” she begins, then grabs his wrist as he reaches for one. “IF you help me decorate them.”

Ford’s eyes fall to hers, and he stares at her a moment, calculating, before a big grin slides onto his face. “Deal.”

Ten minutes later they’re icing cookies at the table, a pile of expertly finished ones next to Mabel, a smaller, but no less neat pile next to Ford.   
“What did you make them out of, anyway,” he inquires, carefully holding up a pumpkin shaped one and drawing the jack o lantern face on it with a piping bag. “I didn’t think we had all the ingredients to make this many cookies.”

Mabel smirks. “I used what we had, and for the rest...Cake mix. Pumpkin spice flavour!”  
Ford pauses and looks over at her. “You used cake mix to make cookies?”  
“Yep!”  
He thinks about it for a moment. “That’s....actually rather ingenious.”  
“I know, right?”

An hour later they both have smears of black, purple, and orange icing on their faces and the cookies are done. Mabel chooses three, one from each shape, and puts them on a plate. “Alright, Grunkle Ford. You ready for your reward?”  
He laughs and wipes his face with a hand towel. “I suppose I am. I did work hard, after all.”  
Mabel nods. “That you did! So follow me!”

She marches her way to the living room and sits on the sofa, patting the spot beside her. Ford walks over and sits next to her. He looks at the plate between them, then at her. “Now may I have a cookie?”  
“You may.”  
With a chuckle, he picks the bat cookie up and takes a bite of it, chewing thoughtfully. Mabel leans forwards in anticipation. “Well?”  
He finishes his bite and swallows before replying. “Delicious.”  
She beams and picks up the pumpkin one, taking a bite of it and letting out a happy ‘mmm!’ sound. “I declare this experiment a success!”

They’re still laughing when Stan and DIpper come through the door, laden with groceries a few minutes later.


	20. Dipford no nsfw drawing drabble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford draws Dipper. For,, reasons. An experimental ship drabble to write outta my comfort zone

“How’s this?”  
“A little… Ah, that’s perfect.”

Dipper smiles before he remembers he’s supposed to be sitting still and stumbles over his apology. “Sorry, sorry!”  
The man in front of him chuckles. “Just try to relax, alright? You’ve got this.”  
His hand moves over the paper in smooth strokes, the pencil sketching the outline of the boy’s cheek, soft and still boyish despite his insistence that his jaw is squaring out like all the other men in the family’s. Then the pencil moves to detail the soft feathering of eyelashes on that cheek.

Dipper shifts a tiny bit, nervous but earnest brown eyes focused on the face of his Great Uncle, noting how absorbed he seems in drawing him. A little shiver passes through him when their eyes meet, but Ford just smiles. “You’re doing great, Dipper. This will be a valuable addition to my collection.”  
Collection.  
Dipper’s cheeks colour more and he tries to hold the pose, but it's hard. There’s just something about the fact that Ford has a collection of drawings of him that makes him feel warm on the inside. He tries not to smile again.

Okay, maybe the depiction of Dipper Ford was drawing wasn’t entirely accurate, it was angelic in ways no human could ever look, and just a hint of sensual, and oh god he could never show him, but he has to finish it. He keeps his face neutral as he continues to sketch, the curve of a shoulder, the lines of a hand. Lips so kissable.  
He’s sweating now, under his sweater its a lot hotter then it should be, but he keeps it together for Dipper’s sake.

“Great Uncle Ford?”  
Uh oh, maybe he’s not nearly as together as he’s trying to portray.  
“Yes, Dipper?”  
“Are you okay? Your face is red.”

Dipper was no stranger to the sight of blushing, but seeing the familiar red flush gracing his idol’s face was….a new experience that made his heart beat faster. It….wasn’t for him, was it? He can’t imagine that, that Ford would like him the way he did. So instead of addressing the blush, he clears his tight throat and instead asks if he’s done.

Ford is, but he keeps his hand moving, stalling for time. If Dipper sees the picture he’ll know what kind of a monster his hero is. He wants to tear it up, and he wants to frame it, and he wants to hold the real thing and he can do none of those things and there’s no way out.  
“...Almost.”

He keeps his head down and adds a few final touches, lost in his own thoughts, and its not until he hears the soft gasp does he jerk his head upright, turning and finding Dipper at his shoulder, staring at the picture with wide eyes.

Well, his brain supples. That’s it. You’ve ruined your relationship with him forever, all because you couldn’t keep your dirty secret in your head. Way to go, Stanford.  
“Dipper, I…”  
He doesn’t know how to explain himself, but he needs to try. “I’m-”  
Dipper beats him to it. “I… Is that… how you see me?”

Ford flinches and looks away, back to the art. He wants to tear it up and burn it now, and the word that comes out of his mouth is almost inaudible. “...Yes.”  
He waits for the condemnation, for Dipper to freak out or leave, and then the shitstorm that would come after would be all that he deserves. But Dipper’s next words come all too fast.

“I never… I thought… I..”  
He bites his lip. “I thought it was just in my head,” he ends with softly.

Ford can swear his heart stops for a span of microseconds. He turns and looks at Dipper, who’s blushing softly and not looking at him, hands clutching at his shirt hem.  
..Blushing because of him.

Of course, he knew Dipper admired him, looked up to him, wanted to be like him, but…  
“Dipper…?”

Dipper lets it all spill out the moment their eyes meet again. “I tried, okay? I tried to ignore it and just go about my life but every time I see you it just gets worse, and when I’m home I miss you, and… I have dreams of…”  
He goes quiet a moment, gathering his courage, heart beating so fast he feels a little dizzy. “I really like you, Grunkle Ford, I… I love you and I thought it was all in my head..that you’d never…”

He’s trembling, and Ford’s first instinct is to pull him closer. “Dipper… I’ve held feelings for you since that first summer. But you have to understand-”

Dipper shakes his head. “I know, I know, its… Its wrong because we’re related, but I’m sorry, I can’t avoid it anymore.” He bites his lip and looks up at him with an expression that makes the man’s chest tighten. He’s on the verge of tears.

Ford’s mind had been stalled, but then… it starts working again. He opens his arms, and Dipper hugs him, tightly.   
“Dipper,” He starts, voice strained, then clears his throat and tries again, his hand moving to the boy’s hair to card his fingers through it soothingly. He chooses his words carefully. “Dipper...I… You know, I’d never...ever hurt you, right?”

Dipper sniffles softly, nuzzling his cheek against Ford’s warm chest. He nods, but Ford needs verbal consent.  
“Dipper, look at me.”  
He looks up, tears glittering slightly on his lashes, nose pink, and he’s so beautiful it takes Ford’s breath right from his lungs. How could he have thought that a mere picture would ever be better than the real thing? “I need you to say it,” he repeats softly, reaching his hand up to cup his cheek.

Dipper’s eyes flutter closed, and he presses into the six fingered touch, nodding. His soft lips part and he speaks. “I know you’ll never hurt me, Great Uncle Ford. I want this.”

Ford’s mouth is dry, but he slides his free hand down Dipper’s spine to press him closer. This is everything he’s ever wanted, no, more.  
“May I kiss you?”

Dipper’s eyes open again and he nods wordlessly, then lifts his chin as their lips get closer, closer, and finally touch. A shiver runs through both of them as they taste each other for the first time, a gentle kiss full of warmth and promise, a kiss shared between new lovers.

Ford pulls back first, to gauge Dipper’s reaction, but Dipper just moves to sit right onto his lap, straddling his thighs and resting his head at the hollow of his throat. He’s smiling, lightheaded in the best way. They just sit like that, arms around each other, drinking in the silence.

Finally he speaks. “...Can I keep that picture?”  
Ford laughs lightly. “Of course, but you should probably hide it from your sister.”  
Dipper looks up, still blushing but smiling broadly. “We have separate  
rooms now. She’ll never even get a glimpse of it. I’ll tell her I drew it and she’ll never want to look!”  
“I’m sure you’re an adequate artist. Next time you should draw me.”

Ford laughs along with him and leans his head down, but instead of kissing him again, he rubs his nose with Dipper’s, answering the boy’s smile with one of his own.  
Sure this is messed up, and his brother would not hesitate to do terrible things to him if he found out, but right now, he can’t even picture that. Right now, in this moment, he is content.


	21. Grimoire falls au drabble end tw character death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the ending scene of my grimoire falls au thing i was trying to write. Its bittersweet and if I ever get back into gravity falls yall fucking BET I’ll be writing the damn fic, note to self

Mabel stumbles to her feet, tasting blood in her mouth where the explosion made her bite her tongue.  
The sky above is cracking, and in between the cracks she can see ...eternity, and it makes her dizzy, so she looks away from that, and where the lone figure of the demon they once called friend raises his arms, starting to lift the blue bubble crackling with power.  
She can’t let him take her brother away. Not this time. Sure she never saw this far in Sasha’s pond but that doesn’t matter. She can see him, her twin, lifeless and suspended within Bill’s power as he drains him of everything that makes him him.  
Her fists clench, and though there are tears in her eyes and her body is shaking so hard she feels she might fall to pieces, she starts walking. Step by step against the force keeping her at bay, even as the sky comes crashing down in pieces all around her and the howl of wind threatens to deafen her. She sees the twisted statues of the townsfolk, of the people she called her family, and though her tears flow freely, she doesn’t look at them.  
She keeps going, shielding her eyes from the blinding glare of the golden demon—and in a fit of bravery, picks up a rock and hurls it at his back. “HEY!!!”

She never expected it to connect, but it did, bouncing off the would-be god’s shoulder and making him turn, his attention broken from his task.  
Bill’s pretty face contorts in fury. “YOU!”  
He keeps one hand clawed and continuing his spell, the other pointing at her. “YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD!”

Mabel doesn’t know what’s beyond this point, or what she needs to do to avert the end of the world, all she knows is she’s not like Dipper, her powers are weak and inconsequential compared to him, but maybe that’s the point.  
After all, she’s a hugger, not a fighter.  
A light gleams in her eyes as she understands. She doesn’t even respond, running full tilt at him and slamming into his middle. Bill snarls and digs his claws into her back, deep, attempting to rip her away. But Mabel just tightens her grip and calls upon both the magics at her disposal, letting them both flood her being, a channel for the arcane, a lightning rod.  
It starts to rain as the plants explode out from under her feet, their feet, growing fast, growing strong.  
They twine around Bill’s legs and he roars as he tries to rip free, but the tree only grows faster, encasing them both and trapping them within thick, healthy bark.  
The last thing the demon is able to do is raise a hand skyward but that too, becomes a branch that sprouts many deep green, healthy leaves.  
And then its all still.

The rain slows, stops, and the sun comes out as the various members of Gravity Falls wake up from their statues, the metal melting away and the stone turning to mud.  
The town is still standing, but where the buildings were destroyed stood flower fields and green grass that ripples in the wind, and in the center, one great old oak, majestic and tall.

They came to name it Mabel’s Tree.


	22. FORD NSFW EXPLICIT OVIPOSITION TW EGGNANT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit man i wrote this for a dare  
> Preportal Ford gets fucked and gets eggnant. Its messy. Its kinky

Tenses present-run  
Tenses past-ran  
Note: change complete work to present-tense

Stanford Pines stumbles through the door and shuts it behind him hard, fingers shaking as he locks it. He doesn't relax until he hears the familiar metallic click and even then, he doesn't relax much at all. With his legs threatening to give out on him at every step, and his lower core aching and burning with an unfamiliar pain, he doesn’t know how he made it home. But he did, and as he winces and leans against the door, breathing hard and heavily, he thanks the unseen gods that his assistant Fiddleford was taking his day off because he wasn’t ready for a lecture.   
Ford sheds his coat, full of rips and damp in places where it shouldn’t be- saliva and various fluids staining the fabric he treasured so dearly- and limps to the bathroom; leaving a trail of discarded clothes on the floor behind him like scattered detritus after a coastal storm.

He drags his aching, dirtied body into the shower, not bothering to wait until the water heats up enough to be pleasurable, and lets the cold spray hit his scratched and bruised skin. A low hiss comes from between his teeth as the water, steadily warming, splashes against several crusted dark claw-marks that grace his forearms, back and sides, the water gurgling down the drain running red as he mercilessly scrubs away the day’s events.

When it comes time to do what he needs to, he’s a lot gentler.  
His fingers come away pink with blood and he lets out a hushed curse and endures the stinging of his torn flesh until he's sure no traces of ejaculate is left inside him. He's done some dangerous things before, but wandering right into a creature he'd never come across before and not having the sense to run when he had the chance...he was lucky it didn't kill him. Of course, what it had done to him wasn’t much better, but at least it had let him escape once it was satiated.  
As he turns the shower off and has to lean on the wall for support, he groans.

Maybe next time he ventures into the forest he'll bring a weapon.

The next week, it's business as usual with the construction of the portal. Despite how lousy Ford felt, he couldn’t find a way to justify any more of a break to his faithful assistant, and he’d already endured enough ridicule when it came to what had happened.  
When he finally laid down to rest after returning home that night, he was greeted in his dreams by his capricious and uncanny muse, Bill Cipher. If a mouthless triangle could grin, Bill definitely would be. His voice was full of repressed glee as he asked him how the portal was progressing, and what he’d gotten up to during his week. He seemed disconcertingly ecstatic that Ford had been raped by a monster, but Ford was used to his strangeness by now. Their meeting had been a short one, but before he returned to the waking world, the golden entity had said something that stuck with the scientist long after the mindscape had faded back into his subconscious.  
“ENJOY MOTHERHOOD, FORDSY~!”  
He didn’t understand what the muse had meant then, simply writing it off as just another one of the unique things Bill said and did, and as the nights following were restful and utterly devoid of witty yellow triangles, he let it slip from his mind.

But halfway through the next week, Fiddleford says something that both confuses him and concerns him, and it isn't anything to do with their project.  
He had been carrying a box of electronic boards past him and Fiddleford had looked up, let out something of a surprised sound and then said "Yer gainin’ weight! Good tah see ya finally eatin’ nutritious food on a daily basis."

That evening, after his lab partner had gone home for the night, Ford drags a full-sized scale into the middle of the portal room and weighs himself. He’s surprised to find that he has indeed gained weight, and is now ten pounds heavier. He examines his stomach later in the bathroom, shirtless, but he can't see much of a difference. Strange.  
Still, maybe he had eaten something more fattening then usual, that was nothing to be alarmed about, so he files the information away in his mind for another time and just continues on with his week.

"What the...?"  
It's dark again, and Ford is staring down at the red numbers flashing up on the screen below him. He's gained more weight, but how? What?  
"This is...wrong," he mutters to himself, a frown on his face as he touches his abdomen below his shirt. It’s noticeable now, he can feel it, there's the slightest bulge in his midriff. His breath hisses through his teeth as a spike of uncertainty stabs through his mind. He doesn't know what's happening to his body, and that's deeply concerning.  
Every day after that, he weighs himself after his work is done. Every day, there's a subtle gain. The bulge in his belly gets more and more pronounced. His panic gets sharper and sharper and eventually, he stops opening the door to anyone, even Fiddleford, who he considered his closest friend. His sleeping habits, too, become atrocious, and he averages 2 to 3 hours a night, not even enough time for Bill to check on him.  
He knows what's happening now, and what's going to happen, and it terrifies him.   
Ford can only wait another week, two, as his belly swells to frightening proportions. For any pregnant woman, it would seem to be perfectly normal dimensions, but to his eyes it’s grotesque and unnatural. He had measured himself around the middle but the time was fast approaching where logic and science were going to fail him. There was nothing, no precedent of any man giving birth to an alien monster's spawn without a womb. No recorded length of gestation, no mention on if a human would even survive such a process.  
There was nothing to guide him or assuage his fears, and he had many. Ford takes to moving carefully, uncomfortably aware that the pressure in his laden belly isn’t a fetus, or even several. Its eggs, and when he presses his palm down on the stretched flesh, he can feel them crowding inside of him. The sensation makes him want to crawl right out of his own skin, and as each day passes, he only gets bigger. Movement becomes harder, doing normal everyday tasks becomes impossible, he’s far weaker then he was before. And every day, he gets a little bigger.

He wakes up in the middle of the night two weeks later, breathing hard and drenched in sweat. Something is wrong, his heart is pounding and when he moves, pain lances him from inside.  
Oh no.  
He's not ready, he's never going to be ready! Quickly he tears off the boxers he was wearing and flings them away. The bed beneath him is wet, and he can feel liquid leaking out of him. It makes him shudder and kicks his fear into high gear.  
This is happening and there’s no stopping it.

He at least had the presence of mind at an earlier time to set up a birthing area and so he carefully rolls upright once the pain subsides and heads there, an immense pressure growing inside of him with every step.

Ford cries out and leans heavily on the nearest wall as he feels the weight inside of him shift slightly downwards. He barely makes it to the space he laid out and then he runs into another problem. What fucking position does he need to be in to give birth?! Nothing he’s read or experienced before could prepare him for this.  
Lost in his frantic thoughts, Ford lets out another hoarse yell of pain as the eggs inside decide they’ve had enough of being cooped up inside him and he ends up on the blanket leaning back against the foot of his couch with his legs pulled up and spread outwards God, if anyone saw him like this, he'd die of mortification. His body shudders and shakes, skin slick with sweat as the contractions of agony ripple through him once more. He bites his shirt to keep from screaming as his body heaves without his consent, pushing, pushing, and he thanks whatever gods that he doesn’t live in town.  
He keeps pushing until he feels it, a baseball sized, oval egg, widening him open from the inside. It burns and he cries, tears streaking down his face as he labours to get it out of him. With one final push, it pops out of him and onto the blanket, followed by a gush of clear slime. He shudders with revulsion, but his rest is short lived. Another egg is on the way. Once the tightly packed eggs start moving within him, the pain subsides marginally, and he's able to breathe properly again, albeit unsteadily.  
two eggs, three eggs... They just keep coming. The slime coating them, coating his twitching entrance acts as a lubricant, and it's not long before he stops feeling pain completely and its replaced with a sensation he’ d rather die than experience.

He prays, for the first time in his life to a deity, any deity, prays that they will keep him from enjoying this.  
A low groan slips from his lips as yet another egg pops out of him, and his back arches slightly at the stretch and retract of his flesh. His cock is hard now, harder then it's ever been, beaded precum at the tip and throbbing against his slowly deflating abdomen, but he refuses to touch it, refuses to indulge in the sickening pleasure that's taken him over.  
"F-Fu-uck~!" The curse feels good on his lips, and his voice whines out as another egg, this time larger then the others are squeezed through his hole, the stretch making him bite his lip and curl his fists in the blankets as it leaves his ass to join its brethren on the damp blankets.

It's at the tenth egg that he gives in, his cock twitching under his fingers eagerly, as he lays back and enjoys the feelings his body are giving him, fingers slick with precum and his body trembling hard as he strokes himself closer and closer to ecstasy. Thank god he lives on the edge of the woods, the sounds he's making border on the obscene.  
As another egg starts to spread his anus open little by little, the pressure inside him coupled with the sensations of his slippery fingers rubbing just below the head of his dick sends him rocketing into nirvana, his vision whiting out for several seconds. When he comes to, Ford is lying on his back next to a dozen or so opaquely shelled eggs, still shiny and wet. He focusses on controlling his breathing and basks in the afterglow of the best orgasm he's had to date. Something nudges him on the inside and he takes a breath before bearing down and pushing that final egg free. His head thumps down on the ground but he's too exhausted to care, too out of it to realize as his mind starts to fade out to unconsciousness that that's exactly how Fiddleford will find him the next morning after having broken in to make sure he was still breathing- asleep, covered in cum and surrounded by his own progeny.  
At the very least, he thinks, the last thought before the darkness swallows him whole; at least he'll have plenty of new subjects to research...


	23. Dark GF drabble TW CHaracter death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dark fic   
> Mabel ded

The sun was setting and the last green leaves fluttered in the slightly chilly breeze. Summer was over, and Mabel was still missing.  
Dipper sat on the porch, staring towards the forest, at the shadows lengthening, at the tall trees hiding their secrets.   
The cops said she was taken, but by whom? Why? There was no ransom note. No witnesses.  
Mabel had just…gone out one day and never come home.  
It had been four months since then, and any trail that had been there, was now cold. Even Stan, who had vehemently vowed to find her and bring her home safe… Dipper had walked in on him beating his fist into a wall furiously one day, shoulders hunched and shaking with quiet sobs.  
The sight made him choke up and he left before he alerted his great uncle to his presence.  
Everything was wrong! He couldn’t function without her, he missed her, *god* he missed her.  
They said she was dead. They said her body might never be found. One by one, they were all giving up, and that thought made panic flare up inside of him. No. No, no matter what, he would never EVER give up on finding his sister. Even if… but he didn’t want to think about that. 

*Summer is over.*  
Dipper shivers a little as the cool breeze blows through the trees, and he looks up at the clouds rolling in from the east.   
He was supposed to go home, back to Piedmont earlier that day, but he refused.  
He couldn’t go home without Mabel, he had pleaded, and that was the truth. He physically could not leave until he at least knew what had happened and neither Grunkle Stan or Grunkle Ford had the heart to force him to go. They were hurting just as badly as he was.

Tears fill Dipper’s eyes and he lifts an arm to wipe them away, the soft yarn of the orange sweater a comfort against his face. Its her sweater, one of them anyway, warm and Mabel scented.  
He never wants to take it off.  
Its getting a little too chilly out though, so he stands to go back inside. Since Mabel had vanished, the shack was closed to the public. It was so quiet without her. So…empty. He casts one last look at the trees as he turns, and then he sees it. Motion, in the corner of his eyes, small… person shaped.  
Dipper’s heart leaps, a joyous thought taking over him body and soul, and its what drives him to run *towards* the trees, pursuing it.  
*She’s come home.*

“Mabel? Mabel!”  
His shouting brings Ford outside to see what the commotion is about and he lets out a yell of surprise when he’s just in time to see Dipper disappear after… something.  
He yells for Stanley, who comes quickly, and they too, run into the forest, but for a very different reason.  
They don’t want to lose their nephew too.

Dipper jumps over logs and ducks under low branches, following the fleeting, shadowy figure through the trees.  
Its started to sing. Soft at first, in a way that makes him feel like its in his head, words are forming.  
*Don't leave me half hanged  
Like the witch in the dark  
This place grows colder  
As strong as we are  
With every rope swing I struggle for air  
I know I'm breathing but is it still there  
Are you still there?*

He doesn’t understand, but he keeps running, and calling out Mabel’s name. Its her, it has to be. He’s going to shatter into a million pieces if its not.   
The deeper he gets into the forest, the darker it gets, and he’s soon stumbling and stubbing his toes, but he keeps going.  
“Mabel, wait! Stop!”  
He calls out to her, hand outstretched—and that’s when he falls down the slope. 

*The night grows quiet  
There's nothing to fear  
And with the nightjar my final thoughts grow clear  
I am innocent of all the words you've thrown  
And I will wear them ‘til the summer leaves have grown  
And the starlings have all flown*

When he looks up, groaning, she’s there, standing over him, reaching down to help him up.  
He takes her hand and lets her pull him upright. Still, though, she doesn’t speak, just smiles and then turns and walks away.

“Mabel? wait, please!—”  
Dipper takes a step forwards and gasps in pain. Something’s wrong with his ankle and he crumples to the ground again.  
Through the haze of pain and tears he sees his sister stop, turn to look back at him, and then simply, vanish.

“MABEL!”  
Dipper crawls forwards on his hands and knees to the spot she had been standing, whining in pain and grief. She was right there, she was right—

His hand presses down on something soft. Fabric.   
Heart thudding in his chest, he brushes away the leaves and sticks and pulls it up. Its a very dirty, very ripped pink sweater. Its Mabel’s sweater.

Dipper’s loud wail alerts Stan and Ford and they come sliding down the slope, calling his name in alarm.  
Stan gets to him first and crouches down, pulling him into a relieved hug, and Ford helps him pick the distraught boy up and carry him.  
He won’t let go of the moldy article of clothing, seemingly in shock.  
Together the two men start walking back, but before climbing the slope again, Ford pulls out a ball of red thread and ties it around the nearest tree trunk. The police will want to follow it back here to retrieve the mangled, half eaten corpse of their niece they had found Dipper barely three feet away from. 

*So decorate my bones  
Decorate my bones  
With autumn flowers when summer's flown  
Decorate my bones  
Decorate my bones  
With dahlias and ragged stones  
Echoing alone.*


	24. Ford meets a feral boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He meets a feral boy in the woods

"Wait, hold on! Stop running, would you, please!"  
Ford almost trips over a raised root poking from the earth, his arms windmilling a moment before he regains his balance. "Hey! I just---!"  
No luck, the boy in grey had already disappeared from sight, but signs of his passage remained, so Ford slows his mad dash and leans on a tree to regain his breath. It had been some time since he'd run to exertion; mainly because nothing was trying to eat him, and because despite how much he enjoyed lording it over Stan that he was the better looking twin, he still was not as young as he was. But he was patient still, so instead of pursuing the tresspasser, he backtracks to his vandalized trap. As far as he could see, the boy had used a rock to bludgeon the rather delicate mechanisms and free the Thunderbird he had been tracking for days. As annoyed as he was, he had to be a little impressed at the child's boldness, since that particular species of elderbird was known for raiding towns and villages and carrying off human beings.

He crouches, and picks up one twisted metal piece that would have held against the Roc's strength if it hadn't been weakened first, and sighs. He has the feeling that if he sets up another trap it'll simply meet the same fate. No, he needs to deal with that forest boy first. But how?

Resolved to think on it further after a proper wash, he returns to his camp--to find it ransacked.  
"Are you KIDDING ME?"  
His supplies are strewn about and the firepit had been doused so he couldn't use it again. He looks for his bag and finds it shredded, and when he picks it up, a few scraps of paper that had been hand written on flutter out. He holds them in his hand a moment, then clenches his fist on them. The boy had taken his journal, and it was probably destroyed, NOW it was personal.

—-

It takes him two days to work out a plan to capture the wild boy that kept interfering with his research—two days and a new trap that he implements after coming across the kid’s dwelling place completely by accident, but once he’s ready, he retreats to set it up and lie in wait.  
He doesn’t have to wait too long, waking up around midday only a few hours later to the consistent beeping that tells him his trap caught something.  
So he heads back to the specific tree and lo and behold there’s a madly struggling dark form tangled up in the reinforced netting.  
Ford approaches slowly, but the moment he stands up, the child whips his head around and stares at him with wide, frightened green eyes.  
It sends a pang of guilt through Ford as he watches the boy pull at the links of the net, trying to break them.  
This was excessive, and no matter how irritating, no child deserved to be treated this way.  
He raises both his hands, palms outward, fingers spread as he steps forward.

“I’m not going to hurt you, please calm down, you might injure yourself. That’s it.”

He’s not sure if it was his voice or the sight of his abnormal fingers but the boy in the net stops fighting and just stares at him instead, chest heaving rapidly, still strangely silent.

“You’re the boy who kept breaking my traps. Why are you out here all alone? Do you have any parents?”

Now that he was closer, he could see just how young the boy is, far too young to be living wild in monster inhabited forest at the foot of the mountain. He’s reminded of Dipper quite strongly, only… Dipper had been a little older then this when they had met, and he had already gone through many experiences with his sister by his side.  
This child was alone, and he seemed so much more fragile, thinner certaintly, but there was something in his eyes too. Something that made Ford want to protect him.  
Few things enough triggered that instinct and all of them were related to his family. There was nothing he cared for more.  
He tries again to calm the boy and get across that he means no harm.

“What’s your name? I’m… I’m Ford. I’m not going to hurt you, alright?”  
He reaches up and unhooks the net from the branch and carefully lowers it to the ground.  
What is he supposed to do?  
The obvious thing would be to take this boy back to town and try and find him a proper home, but they were out at the mountain’s foot, too far for him to receive any assistance, and all he brought with him was equipment for tracking and tagging anomalies, and he absolutely was not going to carry the poor child in a net all the way home. He had to let him go.

The boy’s green eyes watch him warily as he carefully pulls the net open, enough for him to escape from, which Ford was expecting, and the child didn’t disappoint, scrambling upright and bolting away.  
Ford sighs and rolls up the net, heading back to his camp to make something to eat and mull over his options.  
He’s turning the sausages over the fire when he hears something approaching, rustling the undergrowth.  
He tenses, ready for any creature that had come seeking the food he was cooking—but its just the boy.  
He stands just in sight across the camp, staring at Ford intensely. He doesn’t move, his hands holding onto the bottom of his grey, washed out, dirty shirt and fixing the older man with a wary stare.

Ford doesn’t move either, a little shocked and his experience with shy and elusive creatures keeps him motionless.  
The sausage smell gets stronger and he takes his eyes off the boy to look at his meal, starting to blacken underneath.  
Slowly, he starts turning the stick again, and when he looks up again, he’s stunned to see the boy has crept closer.  
He’s like a cryptid in his own right, small and thin and impossibly still except when Ford looks away.  
He doesn’t speak, and the boy doesn’t either, but every time he looks away he can see the child creep closer to the fire and the scent of cooking meat.  
Eventually the wild child is crouched on the other side of the fire, staring at Ford with an animal’s eyes as he continues slowly rotating the meat.   
It’s evident that he’s hungry, but Ford can do nothing while the sausage is still being cooked.  
Its all he really has left.   
\---

But when the boy reaches out to grab one from the stick, Ford speaks up. "You shouldn't do that, it's going to be too hot for you to touch."  
He carefully moves the stick away and the boy jerks back his fingers. Then he seems to battle with himself a while before licking his lips. "...Hungry."  
"Me too," Ford replies, a little stunned. He didn't know the boy /could/ speak. "Just wait a few more minutes, then we can eat." He returns the sausage to the fire and sits back a little, hesitant to push interaction with the child for fear of scaring him off again. "...What's your name?"

The boy just stares at the fire, the light dancing in his green eyes in strange ways, but then he lifts his head slightly and shifts into a sitting position. "...Carter."

/Carter./ A human name for a human boy. Ford lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Hi Carter. I'm Stanford."  
He wasn't expecting the boy to nod and tell him he knows, but that's exactly what happens.   
"H...How do you know?"   
One of the sausages splits with a hiss and Carter looks away from the fire, back towards the trees beyond the camps. "mmh," is all he says. Then, "Are the hotdogs ready?"

So he knew what hotdogs were, so he wasn't /born/ in the forest, wasn't a true wild child. "Yes," Ford replies, still a little intrigued with this small and mysterious child in front of him. "I'll need to get a plate."  
"Don't need one of those."  
Carter gets to his feet, which Ford notices are bare, and winces-- but the boy doesn't seem to care, just plucking two broad leaves from a bush and returning to the fire with them. "Plates."  
He hesitates, holding onto one tightly, and then scoots to one side of the fire and holds it out to Ford.  
"Ah, thank you." He's careful to keep his movements slow, and not touch the boy at all, retrieving the leaf and looking at it. It would make a good plate, he admits. So when he pulls the stick out of the fire and wedges it between a rock and his boot to pull one of the smokies off the pronged end and into the leaf, he holds it back out to his guest. "You look malnourished."

Carter reaches out and snatches the food out of Ford's hand and thrusts the second leaf at him as he retreats a few feet away to enjoy his meal.


	25. Stancest drabble tw stancest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uhhhh boats and kisses. Old stans

Stanford Pines paces the length of the ship’s cabin to one end and then back, the floor rocking gently beneath him, up and down, but he just keeps pacing. He’s rehearsed what he wants to say nigh over 15 times, but it still sounds...wrong somehow. He catches sight of himself in the mirror attached to the wall next to the galley and stares at himself, long and hard.  
Most of the years he spent out in the multiverse, hopping from one world to the next, some colonized, some barren and empty, always looking to stay one step ahead of the people after him, always looking to secure more pieces for the weapon he was building to right his mistake… There hadn’t been many mirrors around, and even now, three years later since his return to 46’/, the dimension he calls home, the sight of himself was still...a little jarring. He had changed so much, and thinking about it made him...anxious.  
He focuses on his eyes, dark green with flecks of brown, not quite hazel, just like his mothers. He tunes everything else out, takes deep breaths that focus on the energy pools inside of him, just like she had taught him. When he feels the ripples in his mind still, he knows he’s as ready as he’ll ever be.

Ascending the steps leading out onto the deck, he emerges into the sunshine. The wind is light and carries the scent of brine and more poetically, unexplored horizons. The ocean stretches out on all sides, deep blue, the waves rolling lazily on by. Ford steps out from under the tarp that shields the cabin door from the rain and looks around for his twin. The sound of soft song reaches his ears and then a small smile tugs at his lips and he starts moving along the deck towards it. He finds his brother leaning against the railing at the prow, staring out at the sea and fiddling with a length of knotted rope without really paying attention to it. Stan looks so...at home on the ocean, moving easily with the shift and sway of the deck, dressed in casual clothes, wearing the red touque Ford had gotten him at the first port they had docked in on their maiden voyage of the Stan O’ War II. A small gift, he had thought, borne out of practicality- but Stan never put it down, and wore it religiously every day thereafter, calling it good luck, and he was wearing it now, and it sent a bloom of warmth through Ford’s chest. He just watches him mess with the knot in his deft hands silently, listening to the hushed tune he’s half singing as he stares beyond the visible horizon. Its a sea shanty titled simply ‘The Mermaid’ and it was one Ford hadn’t been so keen on at first, but when Stan took the effort to learn all the words, and sing it in tune, Ford had joined him. It was quite catchy, after all.

He finds himself joining him against the railing, feeling the breeze picking up and ruffling his hair. He looks over at the other man. “I thought singing into the wind was bad luck?”

Slowly, Stanley comes back to himself, and when his brown eyes meet Fords, they crinkle with amusement. He grins, then lifts a hand and points to his hat. “Don’t worry, Sixer, we’re protected.”  
Ford laughs softly, deciding not to debate the merits of a personal luck charm against the whole of the boat and its potential for disaster if nautical superstitions turn out to be true, and instead just turns back to the ocean, listening to the waves and the far away call of seabirds. They both watch the sunlight play on the crests of each one, content to just ...enjoy the quiet a little. No words need to be said, after years of sailing together, they could read eachother well enough. Ford exhales softly and slides closer to Stan, and the other man wordlessly reaches out a hand and rests it over his. “You’re huffing. Somethin’ you want to tell me?”

Ford chuckles and then turns his hand over, so he can slip his fingers through his brothers. He tries to summon the courage he needs, but when his voice comes out, its clipped, informal, the way it becomes when he’s nervous and trying to hide it. “I.. I’ve been doing some thinking, Stanley.”   
Stan just arches an eyebrow and snorts, tracing his fingertips against Ford’s palm. “That’s dangerous. Should I be worried?”  
Ford’s exppression is...uncertain, and so Stan just tips his fingers up and slips them between the six on the other man’s hand. “Hey, whatever it is, I’m not going to judge you or nothin. You know that.”

Slowly, Ford’s fingers curl down over his. “I-I know, its… I…”  
He rarely gets flustered so Stan is intrigued. “Well now you have to tell me.”

Ford takes one final breath and turns his entire torso towards Stan. “I… I thought about your ...proposition, and-”  
Stan inturrupts him with an amused snort, voice tinged with fond exasperation. “Proposition? Is that what you’re calling it?”  
Ford flushes. “Stanley, please, let me finish.” He’s almost...begging.  
Stan still looks teasing, but relents, leaning back. “Alright, continue.”

Ford takes another deep breath. “You know how I feel, about you, about...us, but..”  
Stan’s smile slowly fades. “So...its a no?” He sounds a little crestfallen, though its clear he’s trying to make it seem like its no big deal, and Ford panicks. “N-No, its not a no!”  
He winces at Stan crosses his arms and fixes him with a stare. “So its a yes.”

Ford’s face is very red now, and the stammering has gotten out of control, so he just shuts his mouth and nods, once.

Stan’s face breaks out into a huge grin. “You could have led with that, nerd! I was afraid you didn’t want me anymore!”

Ford looks appalled. “Stanley, there is no one in this dimension or in any others that I could want more. You complete me, but…. Marriage…”  
Stan throws his head and laughs. “Oh wow! I thought it was always going to be ME who got cold feet when it came to tying the knot! If you’re fine with me, then what’s your issue?”

Ford plays with his hands. “The last time I was in this dimension, homosexuality was….frowned upon. Two men marrying is….still a foriegn concept to me, not to mention, we’re related-.”  
He throws up both hands, then moves one to the back of his neck. “I’m just…. Scared. What if…”  
He looks away, placing both hands on the railing. “What will Dipper and Mabel say?”

Stan’s expression softens and he grabs onto Ford’s sleeve and tugs him away from the railing and into his arms. “Those kids are smart. We can’t hide it from them forever, but you know, I don’t think they’ll care, because they want us to be as happy as we can be. And we don’t have to tell anyone else, this is just for us.”  
He slides his fingers up Ford’s cheeks and then pulls him into a kiss, and its sweet, and soft and everything both of them ever needed.


End file.
